


Training Camp

by Varewulf



Series: Bandori Superpowers AU [21]
Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: AU, F/F, HimaTomo mentioned, Superpowers AU, Yuri, magical girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22598737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varewulf/pseuds/Varewulf
Summary: The SPAU is back! Does anyone remember? Does anyone care any longer?The club members decide to hold a training camp, to see if they can push their powers any further. Can Aya lead them to what they seek?[I will be posting one chapter per day until either this is complete, or I stall out and need to postpone deliveries. I have a significant buffer, so hopefully that'll be enough to see me to through to the end. The chapters will go up around noon my time (might fluctuate a little with my sleep schedule), which I gather is very early o'clock in North America, and sometime in the evening in Japan.]
Relationships: Aoba Moca/Mitake Ran, Hazawa Tsugumi/Hikawa Sayo, Ichigaya Arisa/Toyama Kasumi, Maruyama Aya/Shirasagi Chisato, Shirokane Rinko/Udagawa Ako
Series: Bandori Superpowers AU [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1157360
Comments: 52
Kudos: 134





	1. Planning & Departure

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long time, huh? I actually started writing this back in July, and everything in the first chapter was written back then. Then I hit a heavy writer's block for several reasons, and it got stuck in the drafts folder for... seven months now? I have worked a little bit on it here and there, but I only truly bulldozed through the block about a week ago. I had originally intended to wait until I was done, and dump everything at once, but it's just growing out of control.  
> So my hope is that if I start releasing chapters now, it will light a fire under my butt to wrap this up.
> 
> Some notes:  
> -One of my first decisions was to advance how the club members refer to each other, considering they've been hanging out for a while now. So for instance Arisa and Misaki now call each other "Arisa" and "Misaki" instead of "Ichigaya-san" and "Okusawa-san". Generally most members have moved to referring to one another by their given names. Though some things remain, like Sayo and Rinko still using family names for most people. I've tried to model it after how they refer to their band members, and friends in general.  
> -Because of how long it's been there may be inconsistencies with previous stories. I've tried to be diligent and look things up to maintain the canon, but my detail memory can be really bad.  
> -Chapter lengths will vary a bit, though I will as much as possible try to keep them within the same range.  
> -There's probably more, but I'll try to remember to bring it up as it becomes relevant.

The Yet Again Nameless club were having their final gathering of the year, and Aya was met with an unexpected request.

"A training camp?"

Most of the others nodded. "Yes."

Aya blushed. "I-I mean, I'm flattered, but why do you want me to lead it? Surely Maya-chan, Sayo-chan, or Tsugumi-chan are better suited for that."

"Eh?!" Maya started. "Me? No way."

In spite of Maya's protest, the rest were aware that those three had an edge in terms of organisational ability.

"While I appreciate your candidness, Maruyama-san," Sayo said. "The fact remains that you can do most of the things the rest of us can. So it only makes sense that you would be in charge of the training."

"W-well..." Aya felt warm and fuzzy from the praise, but she needed to stay the course. "I do it by magic, so I'm not sure if the skills are transferable... and why do you want a training camp anyway?"

"We were talking, and realised a lot of us have been thinking about how to control our powers better, or maybe even improve them," Ako said. "I kinda thought it was just me, hehe... but turns out several of us do."

At least Moca, Rinko, and Arisa were nodding along.

"And I'd like some combat practice," Sayo added. "I've never taken any martial arts beyond archery, and I especially have trouble controlling myself in the air."

"Eh?" Aya blinked. "I don't know martial arts either, Sayo-chan. I just kinda... fight on instinct. Besides, you don't need to fight anything, do you?"

"I would rather be prepared just in case it should ever come up," Sayo said in a very sensible tone.

Aya looked around the room. "And all of you want to go?"

"Well, I don't know if I'm capable of actually improving anything," Tsugumi said. "But I want to go along if everyone else is. We don't do a lot of club activities, after all."

"Same here," Maya said. "My ability is entirely passive, but I want to help out if I can."

"I don't really feel the same need to improve," Misaki admitted. She generally seemed like one of the least concerned about her own powers, even if she was interested in others'. "But I'd feel bad if I was the only one who didn't go. Regardless it will probably be less stressful than Hello Happy excursions tend to be, so it might be a refreshing change of pace."

Aya couldn't help wondering what exactly Hello, Happy World did on their excursions. Considering Misaki's seemingly innate desire to help others in spite of claiming she'd rather not make the effort, maybe she ended up with a lot to look after.

"Alright." Aya caved in. "But I'll have to check my schedule for when I'm available. The agency doesn't give me a lot of free weekends." She was not as busy as Chisato, but she had been getting more work as Pastel*Palettes got more popular. If it kept ramping up, she might have to cut back on her fast food job.

"Yay!" Ako bounced into the air.

"Oh, and could you ask Chisato-san if she'd like to join us?" Tsugumi asked.

Chisato hadn't been able to make their gathering that day, since her busy schedule was no empty boast. So she might not have an opening at the same time as Aya, but even if she did it was uncertain whether she would want to join a training camp. It would probably involve a lot of being outside during the day. But...

"I'll ask her," Aya said. It couldn't hurt, and maybe she'd get offended if she wasn't at least told about the camp beforehand.

"Great! Next thing on the agenda, I want to bring up the club name again. Since none of you want to accept my suggestion, does anyone else have any ideas?" Tsugumi asked.

"Oh, oh~. I have an excellent Moca-chan tee em idea~. GIRL: Girls In Radiant Love~." Moca looked very proud of herself.

"Moca-chan, no."

"Why~? It's basically the same as what you want, Tsugu~."

"It is not! And it doesn't say anything about the club!" Tsugumi protested.

"Everyone here is in love~, Tsugu~," Moca pointed out.

"It's embarrassing as hell," Arisa chimed in. "And what if we get a member who isn't in love?"

Misaki raised her hand. "I agree with Arisa on the embarrassing part," she said.

"Hmmm~... then what about the BB club~?" Moca suggested.

"BB club?"

"The Bangin' Babes club~."

"Out of the question," Sayo said immediately, and definitively.

"Hey, I've been thinking," Ako said. "That maybe we should have a name that's like an easy excuse. I was thinking BAND. It could stand for... uh... BAnd of New Discoveries. Then we could say we're going to hang with the band if anyone asks!"

"The idea has merit, Ako-san," Sayo said. "But that might not be the best acronym. I think Minato-san would be rather distressed if we claimed to be part of another band."

"Oh... you're probably right..."

"Hey... uh... what about the SF club?" Arisa said. "Like, Supers and Friends?" Everyone looked at her, and she started to blush. "I mean, saying you're in an SF club sounds innocent enough. People would probably think you mean a sci-fi club, or something..."

The was a brief silence, which Maya ended up breaking. "Hm... I like it."

"I'm not opposed to it," Misaki said. "We're all nerds here anyway, so it's not like anyone would doubt it."

"I'm not a nerd," Sayo was quick to say. "That being said, I have no particular objections."

Misaki gave her a flat look. "Sure." Then she smirked at Arisa. "Did you think long and hard about this one, Arisa?"

"Shut up, Misaki," Arisa grumbled.

"I am... in favour," Rinko said.

"Yeah, me too!" Ako said.

"I still think my suggestions are better~, but I am willing to lend my support~," Moca said.

Tsugumi sighed, then smiled. "I guess the majority has spoken. We're now the SF club." The matter was decided.

Aya had been about to voice her support too, but it turned out to not be necessary. "Good for you, Arisa-chan," she said with a smile.

Arisa blushed, and stared at the floor. "Eeesh, it's not such a big deal..." Though it wasn't hard to tell she looked pleased. Maybe she was blushing so hard because she could hear everyone thinking that.

And maybe that name would actually stick. Only time could tell.

* * *

"Oh! Good morning, Chisato-chan. You're early."

"Of course," Chisato seemed to be in a good mood. Perhaps the cloudy weather helped. "Good morning, Aya-chan. I'm more surprised to find you here already."

"Fufufu~." Aya brimmed with smugness. "I made sure to come early so I could prepare." She had packed the night before. Two suitcases. Which might seem a bit much, but Chisato had brought the same, so it was probably okay.

It had taken a few weeks into the new year to finally get a weekend off for the training camp. Though Aya was still surprised at how easily Chisato had agreed to go along, even if her reasoning made sense.

Aya had asked that very night after the meeting. She had sent a text, and then Chisato had called her within a minute.

* * *

"I'm coming," was the first thing the vampire said.

"Huh? But we haven't even set a date yet, how can you be sure you have time?" Aya asked.

"I will make time."

"Chisato-chan?" Aya was confused.

There was a sigh on the other end. "Listen, Aya-chan. This could be the chance of a lifetime. To see so many super-powered humans in one place, and training to see whether their powers can grow. I've never had such an opportunity before, and it might never come again. The next triggering event could be centuries off, and even if I'm still alive the circumstances might not allow it. So I will _make_ time."

"So... you see it as a research opportunity?" Aya asked.

A brief silence. "Something like that."

* * *

And sure enough when Aya found an open weekend in her schedule, Chisato managed to get that same weekend open too, and both of them were going.

Maybe they had arrived a tad too early, though. There was still no sign of the others, since their appointed meeting time was over 15 minutes away. Yet Aya had felt too excited to stay at home after finishing breakfast.

The area was largely empty, so Chisato gave Aya a quick peck on the cheek. "By the way, Aya-chan..." She also gave her a curious look. "Are you already transformed?"

"Eh? You can tell? I thought I had disguised it perfectly..."

"Well, I wasn't entirely sure until you confirmed it. I didn't think you were capable of hiding your power that well, but there's still something about your aura that feels different."

Aya felt a little disappointed. She had transformed in a safe space before heading over, but had taken care to disguise herself. Like making her clothes look normal, and focusing her thoughts on being inconspicuous.

The next person to arrive was Sayo, with a single suitcase, just a few minutes after Chisato.

"Good morning, Sayo-chan," Aya said.

"Good morning," Sayo replied. "I had expected to be the first one here."

Aya felt a touch of smugness again.

The three of them chatted idly while waiting for the rest. It was clear that Sayo was still a little wary of Chisato. She wasn't exactly tense, but she had her guard up. Ako breaking the ice had helped the others acclimatise to Chisato's true nature reasonably quickly, but Sayo was always the most cautious of the group. As the most powerful one (besides Aya) she probably felt a certain responsibility to protect the others. Perhaps she was just a protective person regardless.

At about five minutes to the hour, Arisa and Misaki showed up with one case each. Neither seemed in particularly great shape.

"Good morning, you two," Aya said.

"You're early." Sayo sounded impressed.

Misaki yawned. "Yeah, well... Arisa and I made a pact to make sure we got each other up in time," she said.

"Misaki called me... at bloody seven... o'clock..." Arisa seemed just a tad grumpy.

"It was a quarter past."

"That's not much better..."

They had all agreed to meet at nine in the morning, which still counted as 'quite early' on a day off. Chisato and Sayo had argued meeting at eight, but the others wouldn't have it. Though it seemed like those two might have made it anyway. Or perhaps Misaki was secretly more excited than she was letting on.

Sayo started asking them if they'd remembered to bring everything, listing off several essentials until Maya arrived at exactly nine. Also with two suitcases.

"Good... good morning, everyone," she said, slightly out of breath. "I'm not late... am I?"

"No, you're exactly on time, Maya-chan," Chisato said.

Rinko showed up a few minutes later, dragging a large rolling case. "Sorry... I'm not good... with mornings..." She did look a bit rough, and tired.

"It's okay, Rinko-chan," Aya said. "You're not even the last one."

"Yes, we're still missing Tsugumi-san, Ako-san, and Aoba-san," Sayo said. "Strange..." she added in a quieter tone.

"Is something wrong, Sayo-chan?" Aya asked.

"Huh? No. Probably not. It's just... Tsugumi-san sent me a text when she left the house, and I thought she should have made it by now..." While she was trying to hide it, Sayo seemed a little worried.

"I'm sure they'll show up soon," Maya said. "There's no way Ako-san would miss out on this trip, after all."

Apparently their plan had been for Tsugumi and Moca to meet at Ako's house to pick her up.

Five minutes passed, and Sayo was visibly starting to fret. Then another five passed.

"Maybe I should call..." Sayo said, and reached for her phone.

"Ah! I can see them," Misaki called out.

"Good morning, everyone!" Tsugumi called out as they fast-walked over. "Sorry we're late." All three of them had managed to bring only one case each.

"What happened? Is everything okay?" Sayo asked as she rushed to meet Tsugumi.

"Well, you see~," Moca said. "Tomo-chin wanted to come along~."

"Huh? Why?" Misaki asked.

"Um..." Ako blushed. She looked embarrassed, and a little guilty. "Onee-chan wasn't keen on me going away without her in the first place, and then... um... I might have let slip that a vampire was coming along..."

"Ako-chan..." Chisato's tone was hard to read.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! I was just so excited when telling her about the trip, and... I didn't mention your name, I swear!"

Chisato sighed. "Oh, don't worry about it. Seems like you've already learned your lesson," she said. Poor Ako certainly seemed distressed enough as it was.

"It took us a while to convince Tomoe-chan that it's going to be fine, and that the other club members don't want her to know their identities," Tsugumi explained.

"I see..." As a fellow older sister, Aya could somewhat relate.

"We didn't miss the train, did we?" Tsugumi asked. "Actually, why are we meeting out here, and not at the train station?"

"Good question," Misaki chimed in. "On that matter, where are we even going?"

"I can answer that," Chisato said. "There's a facility my family runs. Well, I say facility... it's a big open field, with a building on the side. Nothing fancy, but Aya-chan agreed it should suit our needs."

"A vampire training facility?!" Ako's bad mood flipped around immediately.

"Aha, not quite. But if you'd like to think of it that way, why not?" Chisato smiled.

"Are we..." Arisa yawned. "Staying there too?"

"No, it's not set up for that, unless we want to bring our own futons. There's a ryokan not far away that we'll be staying at, in the nearby town. Just a 10-15 minute walk away," Chisato explained. "Though I'm also not sure why we're meeting out here."

"Fufu~." Aya stood as tall as she could. "That is because we're not going by train, we're taking the Magical Girl Express."

A bunch of confused faces looked at her.

Only Ako had a different reaction. "Oh! Is that why you're already transformed?" she asked.

"Er..." First Chisato, then Ako. Though it made sense that Ako's special sight could tell. She could even see through the transformation barrier, which was why Aya had made a policy to never transform when Ako was looking. "Yes. Everyone gather around. No need to squeeze, but please stand as close as you're comfortable."

While still clearly confused, everyone did as they were told, and shuffled into place. Meanwhile Aya took out her rod, and flicked her wrist. Completely unnecessary, as she only needed to think about what she wanted, but she liked adding a bit of flourish. A transparent bubble sprang up around the group. It was entirely one-way. To anyone outside they were completely invisible, but they could see outside freely.

"Eh?" "What?" "What the-" "W-whoa!"

They sprang up in the air, which caused a small amount of screaming. Aya experienced a mix of feeling bad, and also a strange satisfaction.

"Calm down, everyone! It's perfectly safe!" she said. "I'll get us to the camp in no time at all!"

Chisato hugged onto her arm, as if for safety. "Aya-chan... are you showing off?"

"W-what? No. Nooo, of course not," Aya said, but it was clear Chisato wasn't buying it. "Maybe a little, hehe... b-but it saves us the fare of going there, and it'll be much faster." Travel costs for ten people added up to quite a lot. Still, she figured she'd take it a little easy, since they weren't used to going at the speed she usually did. Even if the magic shielded them from the feeling of acceleration, and sense of movement, seeing the landscape fly by so quickly might still be disorienting. She noticed Rinko, Maya, and Misaki had already shut their eyes, while on the other end of the scale Ako's eyes were as wide as dinner plates. She looked like she was trying to take in everything at once.

"Cooooooool!" the little drummer exclaimed. "I can't feel us moving at all! It's like I'm still safely on the ground!"

Aya had made sure to simulate a platform for them to stand on, rather than just letting them float.

"I wish Ran could see this~," Moca said, which made Aya smile just a little.

"Fascinating," was all Sayo said. Tsugumi also had her eyes shut, and was holding onto Sayo's arm at least as tightly as Chisato was holding onto Aya's.

"Uh... d-doesn't this count as an abuse of power, Aya-senpai?" Arisa asked, her voice a little shaky.

"Huh? Of course not, this is nothing, really," Aya replied. It was using a very minuscule amount of her power, so it wasn't like she was draining resources or anything. Probably. As far as she knew.

Ako squeezed Rinko's hand. "Rin-rin, look."

Rinko cautiously opened one eye, then the other. "Whoa..."

"Are we there yet?" Maya asked. Her eyes were still firmly shut.

"Just about," Aya said. Thankfully the magic was guiding her where to go. She wasn't sure if she would have gotten there on her own, but so long as she trusted she would get there, she knew the way. It was probably best to not think too closely about how that worked, in case it broke the spell. The others probably couldn't tell yet, but she could see the field Chisato had told her about. Maybe Ako could see it too. How did her eyes perceive their journey?

As they got close, Aya slowed down, and set them all down gently. "We're here," she said. The trip had taken somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes.

"Really?" Maya still wasn't opening her eyes.

"Y-yeah, we've landed," Tsugumi confirmed after carefully peeking.

Maya risked opening an eye. "Oh. Huh. It... doesn't feel any different." She sounded genuinely surprised.

"Oi. Open your eyes, you wimp," Arisa said, and poked Misaki.

"Uh..." Misaki looked like she was bracing herself before she did as she was told. "Oh. That wasn't so bad."

"Yeah, sure," Arisa smirked. Apparently she had already forgotten that she had sounded pretty shaky herself.

Chisato stepped out in front. "Okay, follow me everyone. I'll lead the way to the ryokan," she said, all trace of any previous nervousness gone.


	2. Day 1: Ako

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the format for most of the fic. Each chapter being one person's experience/training.
> 
> This is also the part I was stuck on the longest. I ran into the same problem as the characters: How exactly do I test/train Ako's power? I skipped it for a while, focusing on writing the other parts, but then eventually went back and wrapped it up. Though that also means this is the part I feel least sure whether I did a decent job on.  
> I had more confidence in writing the subsequent parts, though I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean they're better.

After getting their rooms, and dropping off their cases, they headed back to the training field. There wasn't really any precedent for how to set up a schedule for something like this, and they only had one Aya to go around for the four-five of them who wanted some direct coaching. So they had to figure out which order to go in.

Sayo immediately volunteered to go last, saying she thought it was better to put any combat training towards the end. Aya had to admit she wasn't sure how to help to Moca, at which point Maya stepped up instead. She said she had some ideas for how to work with Moca, so they decided to try her plan instead. Which left Ako, Arisa, and Rinko to decide which order they would go in.

After drawing straws, and having to swear she hadn't cheated, Ako got to be the first to get Aya's help.

She had barely slept the night before, and was still far too excited to feel sleepy at all. They had gotten to fly in what was essentially a magic bus, so the trouble with her big sister was largely forgotten as well. She was hyper-alert! For now.

There was still the issue of not really knowing _how_ to train or improve her power. Her and Moca had run into the same problem during their own excursion, and try as she might, Ako hadn't really been able to think up any great ideas. It didn't help that no one really knew what the scope of her power was. She didn't even know everything she was capable of herself. But since they had two days, Aya suggested using the first to try to establish how much Ako could do. Or see, as the case was.

"Okay, so first off I figured we could try a game," Aya said.

"A game?" Ako gave her a puzzled look.

"Yes. I'm going to create some copies of Usa-chan, and see if you can tell which is the right one." The Usa-chan Aya mentioned was probably the clearly well-loved bunny plush she was holding. It was a faded pink, had some extra stitches on its left ear, a patch on both its tummy and right leg, and the button nose looked like it might be a replacement rather than the original. "I know you can see through some of my magic, but I was thinking that maybe if I was specifically trying to deceive you it could be different."

"Ooohhh, good thinking!" Ako said eagerly. Magic was supposed to be able to do anything, so it made sense to try it out.

"Make sure you don't look while I set it up."

"Okay!" Ako turned around, and covered up her eyes. Maybe that wasn't necessary, but it felt in the spirit of things. Her stomach tingled. Even though it wasn't the first time she was getting to see Aya's magic in action, it felt just as exciting every time. Maybe she would get used to it eventually, but she wasn't quite there yet.

While Moca and Maya had already headed off to work on Maya's plan, whatever that might be, and Tsugumi had gone with them, most of the others stuck around to watch. Everyone was supposed to have tried to come up with some way to practice on their own, or at least with someone other than Aya, but Misaki said she didn't really have anything she wanted to work on; Rinko and Arisa needed Aya's help with what they wanted to improve; Sayo needed a sparring partner (Misaki was not eager to be one); and Chisato only intended to watch anyway.

Maybe by the end of the day everyone would figure out something to do on their own for the next day, but at the moment they were honestly more interested in watching. It was quite literally something you didn't get to see every day.

"There we go, you can look now," Aya said.

"Okay!" Ako turned back around, and put her hands down. Aya had laid down a large blanket, presumably so she didn't have to put her beloved plush down on the dirty ground, and on it sat four Usa-chans. To the average eye they looked completely identical. Ako was impressed at the level of detail. There was really no flaw in the copying. But to her eyes three of them were glowing a gentle pink. If she focused on any of the glowing ones they looked slightly transparent. "That one," she said, pointing at the second from the right.

"H-huh?" Aya looked surprised. "Wow, you got it right away."

Ako felt pleased with herself. "Well, they look like perfect copies, but I can tell they're magic," she said confidently. Out of curiosity she leaned down, and poked one of the magic bunnies. It squished just like a real one would. "Your magic is amazing, Aya-senpai!"

"Uh, thanks... I guess I gotta try harder." Aya did a double arm-pump, as if to psyche herself up. "Look away again, I'll make it harder this time."

When next she looked back, there were a dozen Usa-chans, all arranged in a round huddle. Eleven of which were glowing. "That one," Ako said, poking the non-glowing plush sitting close to the centre.

"Ugh... right again," Aya said. "I thought maybe I could overwhelm you."

"Fu~fu~fu~." Ako beamed.

"So you can really see the magic?"

Ako nodded.

"Hm... then I have another idea."

The next test had twenty Usa-chans. Ako wondered how many Aya was capable of making. More importantly all of them were glowing. For a moment she thought that maybe Aya had taken the real one away, but she decided to look closer at the bunnies. She focused her sight, and quickly found that one of the bunnies wasn't transparent. It was just covered in a magical field. "There it is!"

"Whoa... but I put magic around it."

"Yeah, but I can still see it under the magic," Ako said.

Aya's shoulders slumped. "I guess I'm not able to fool you..."

The disappointed expression made Ako feel a little bad. "Sorry..."

"Don't worry about it, Ako-chan," Chisato spoke up from the side. "Aya-chan is just easily disheartened."

Aya jumped. "Eh? Uh... y-yeah, I'm sorry, I just... um... so what do we test next?"

That was ever the problem. The ability to 'see things' was was harder to quantify than one might initially think. Thankfully the others were willing to chime in.

"How about testing range?" Misaki suggested. "Like... how far away are you able to read something?"

"Like a book?"

"Sure. The small text might be a decent test, right?"

"Does anyone have a book?"

Rinko raised her hand. "I brought... some light novels."

It didn't take Aya long to fetch one from the ryokan, so the test could start. She started by standing roughly five metres away, and holding the novel open for Ako.

Ako only needed to focus a little bit for the text to become as clear to her as if she was holding it in her hands. "It was Sonya's turn to go to the market. She hated being on shopping duty..." After reading off a whole paragraph, Aya checked the book, and found that Ako had read it perfectly. Next she moved twice as far away, but Ako still didn't have any problems. Even when Aya moved as far away as she could without leaving camp, or going out of sight, Ako was able to focus on the text as if she had some sort of built-in magnifying feature.

There was the niggling thought in the back of her mind that she wasn't exactly sure what use her power might be, but it might be best to worry about that later. At the moment it was kinda fun to demonstrate what she was capable of. It made it feel more like a real power, and she wanted to impress the others with how cool she could be. She read western superhero comics as well as manga, and teams always tended to find ways to make the most of their members, no matter how odd their powers might be.

"Hm... next... maybe trying to read some faraway sign, but we can't really see any of the town from here." Misaki seemed like she had become the ideas person for this part. Ako considered her a kindred spirit in terms of liking superpowers since they were on a lot of the same forums, so it was possible she had given the subject a lot of thought on her own. And it was true that their camp location was out of sight. The vampires probably didn't want anyone to accidentally see whatever they did here.

"Well, there's a ski resort up on the mountain there," Chisato said, and pointed towards a large clear area on a nearby mountainside. They could make out a line of ski lifts going up it. While there was very little snow down where they were, the amount grew quickly as elevation rose. The side of the mountain looked like a pretty solid white. "There are probably some signs there Ako-chan could try reading."

"Uh... but how do we know if she's read them right?" Arisa asked. It was a good point.

"Oh! I can check that." Aya perked up.

"There we go. Why not give it a try, Ako-chan?" Chisato said with a smile.

"Okay!" It took Ako a little more effort to focus in on the area, but soon enough things were becoming clearer. She could see people riding the lift, and she honestly got tempted to give it a go herself. Maybe they could plan a ski trip for later. If not with the club, then with her sister, and some friends maybe. But at the moment she had other things to think about. She found the ski lodge, and on a smaller building next to it there was a sign. "Ski rental. Adults 16+. One day. Full set: 3500 yen. Skis only: 2500 yen. Boots only: 1200 yen."

"Alright then, I'll go check," Aya said, and zoomed off. Ako tracked her flight, and saw her pause by the sign for a couple of seconds, before zooming back. "I took a picture," she said upon her return, and showed it to everyone. It said exactly exactly what Ako had read.

"That's almost eerie," Arisa said.

"What is your limit, Ako?" Misaki pondered. "Like..." She started looking around. "Can you see the plane up there?" She pointed towards a distant object in a clear part of the sky that everyone else could just barely discern as an aircraft.

Though to Ako it was different. Even without focusing she could see it was white, though that was a pretty common colour anyway. "I'll see if I can make out the flight number."

"Seriously? I was kinda joking..."

It was definitely more effort to get a clear vision of it that time. Aircraft flew pretty high, after all. But it was gradually coming into view. "Japan Airlines..." And towards the tail... "JA8985."

"Be right back!" Aya said, then vanished again. At least to everyone but Ako, who could see what looked like a magic trail marking Aya's flight. She paused at the plane, then made her way back. Ako pulled back her focus to follow Aya's return trip instead of watching the plane any longer. "What did you say it was, Ako-chan?" she asked after landing.

"Uh... JA8985."

Aya nodded, then showed everyone the picture she had taken.

"Whoa... that has to be so far away..." Arisa scratched her head. "At this rate I could almost believe you able to spot a satellite in orbit."

That everyone was so impressed made her feel cool. "I can try!" she said eagerly.

"Huh? No, that was definitely a joke," Arisa was quick to say. "Do you have any idea how high up that is? Besides, it's still cloudy right above us."

"I still want to try," Ako insisted. Space surely wasn't _that_ much farther away than an aircraft at cruising altitude. Didn't they fly like halfway up to space? "Clouds are no match for my Dark Gaze of Truth." Clouds were basically just thick fog, and she could see through fog.

"But how are you even going to find one?" Misaki asked. "They say the international space station can be glimpsed looking like a star sometimes, but a satellite? They're kinda small by comparison."

"Well... Ako-chan can see my magic, so I could go up there, and mark one for her to focus on," Aya said. "It'd be like a beacon."

Ako gawped at her. "You can go all the way into space?!"

"Uh..." Aya had an expression implying that she might have said something she wasn't supposed to. The only one who didn't look surprised was Chisato.

Ako shook her head. She could ask about that later. "But, um, I think I want to try to find one myself."

"Are you sure... Ako-chan?" Rinko sounded a little worried.

"No problem! Dark Gaze of Truth, activate!" Ako stared up at the sky, and really focused. The clouds faded away, the sky gave way to black, and the stars became visible. It seemed to go on forever. She remembered hearing once, maybe in class, that the Earth's atmosphere was littered with orbiting objects, be they functional satellites, or just various junk, but it didn't look like it from her point of view. Maybe she just needed to concentrate harder to see them.

There was... "Ow!" It suddenly felt like a sharp needle was stabbed into her forehead, and it forced her eyes closed.

"Ako-chan?!"

"Ako-chan!"

"Ako!"

Ako wasn't sure why everyone was shouting, though suddenly she felt herself hit something soft. It was a little hard to open her eyes again, but when she did she could see Rinko's worried face looking back at her. Upside-down. "Wha..." It took her a moment to realise it was Rinko she had hit. Had she fallen onto her? That meant the squishy thing her head was resting against was probably...

"Ako-chan? Are you okay??"

Ako considered that maybe it wasn't the time or place to think about that. "I... I'm fine..." she said. "Just got a headache."

"Heal."

There was a pink light, and the pain faded from Ako's head. She could still feel something, but it was bearable.

"Maybe that's a good place to stop the testing for now, Ako-san." Sayo also looked quite worried.

"Yeah..." Ako couldn't really argue with that. Trying to look cool was apparently dangerous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ski rental prices I literally just lifted from a Norwegian site, converted them into yen, and rounded to something I thought sounded reasonable. Whether they're accurate to what it actually costs in Japan idk.  
> And the flight number is a real one. I looked up images of JA aircraft, and wrote down one of them. Whether that one would actually fly in the area they're in... who knows.


	3. Day 1: Rinko

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was where I first started feeling that maybe this was going to turn out longer than originally planned. Instead of just writing fun, short training sessions, I started plumbing into Rinko's hopes and insecurities.

With the decision give Ako a rest for the time being, it was Rinko's turn.

They had already established a little while back that Rinko's invisibility worked on Aya. The magical girl could do something akin to a scan to find her, but otherwise she could neither see nor sense Rinko. Getting control of that power was something she was trying to figure out on her own, so what Rinko actually wanted help with was her teleportation.

She had always been a little frustrated that it only took her to one place, but it hadn't been a big issue until she started hanging out with the others, and saw what all of them could do. All her efforts to go anywhere but home had so far borne no fruit, and it still had the issue (like her invisibility) of triggering automatically if she got too anxious. But if she could at all control it to go anywhere else it would at least feel a little useful.

Aya had sort of accidentally let slip that she could do short-range teleportation, though claimed that long-range was beyond her. She could travel so fast she had never needed it anyway. Rinko suspected that maybe Aya had just never seriously tried, but she didn't want to press the issue. Range had never been an issue for Rinko, though she wasn't exactly the most well-travelled, and hadn't put it to any serious test. She could at the very least move across most of Tokyo, but hadn't tested it outside the city anywhere.

"I'm not sure how much my method will benefit you, Rinko-chan," Aya said apologetically. "I just sort of feel where I want to go, and the magic handles the rest."

"Still... I would like to hear... your thought process," Rinko said. It felt like she had reached the limit of what she could do on her own. No matter what she tried to think of, where she wanted to go, she always ended up in the same place. So maybe working with someone who had done what she'd like to do might lead to progress. She just hoped there wouldn't be too much expectation laid on her to succeed.

"Hm... I'm not sure I have one..." Aya said, then suddenly her face flushed pink. "I-I mean, of course I think about things. I think about things all the time."

"That is not... what I meant... Maruyama-san," Rinko said. Maybe Aya was a little too used to being called an airhead. "I meant more... how do you focus... whether you need line of sight... or do you just visualise?"

"I suppose visualise isn't a bad word for it." Aya idly tapped her cheek. "If there's an obstacle I want to get through, I just imagine that I'm on the other side, and I appear there. I've never thought about needing line of sight... I've gone through solid walls. I... hm... I suppose the magic figures out an open space for me to appear in."

"I see..." That sounded a bit dangerous in Rinko's case. If she tried going through a wall, she wouldn't have any magic guiding her to make sure she didn't reappear inside a solid object. Whether that was something innate to her power anyway she had no idea, and finding out relied on her actually being able to go where she wanted in the first place.

"Sorry, that's probably not very helpful. I tend to do what I do without thinking about it," Aya admitted. "I act on instinct, and trust in my power to do what I want it to."

"Trust in... your power..." Those words gave Rinko pause. She did not particularly trust her power. In fact she was probably a little afraid of it. Always worried about going out of control, or it not doing what she wanted. Maybe that was the problem, or at least part of it. She didn't have faith in her own ability.

"But maybe line of sight is a good place to start, Rinko-chan!"

"Oh?"

"How about we set up a target for you to try teleporting to? With a clear line of sight so you know exactly where to go?"

"I..." It was something Rinko had tried before, but since she only had one attempt it couldn't really be called practice. "I'm not sure... I might just end up... going home..." If only it was possible to try over and over again that would be a different story. "Maruyama-san... can you maybe... block me off... so I'm not able to teleport... out of the area?"

"Uh..." Aya looked away for a moment, then looked back at Rinko. "Not reasonably, no. Sorry, Rinko-chan."

"Not reasonably?"

"Well... the Guardians don't believe setting up a magic barrier would be enough to stop you. If your power was also based on magic it would be a different story, but you... uh... fall under a different jurisdiction, so to speak. You'd probably just go right through it." Aya scratched her head. "I could try setting up a pocket dimension for us to practice in, but we have no way of knowing how your power would interact with that, and I'm not sure I want to find out the hard way."

Rinko blinked. She only understood about half of that, though at least it sounded like Aya didn't have the ability to trap her without going to extreme measures. Which was sort of a relief, but also not helpful at the moment.

"B-but if you do end up teleporting home, I can come pick you up again! So you can have as many attempts as you want. I promise." Though she had stuttered at the start, Aya sounded quite confident by the end.

"Oh..." Rinko thought about it. She was still worried, but she had come all this way with the intent of improving. If she wasn't even going to try, then what was the point. It would take a little while for Aya to pick her up, and then get back to the camp, but it would give her more than one attempt. Even if they only managed a handful before it was Arisa's turn, that was still better than one. "Okay."

Chisato helped them find a mat inside the building that they dragged outside to use as a target for Rinko. The initial goal was to stand roughly ten metres away, and try to teleport onto it.

The rest of the club had spread out. Maya, Tsugumi, and Moca had gone inside the building to work on Maya's plan; Arisa and Misaki seemed to be discussing something, though they drew closer when they saw Aya and Rinko come back outside; Sayo had somehow found a training dummy, or maybe Chisato had found it for her; and Ako had immediately rushed over to help Aya and Rinko when they came outside.

"Okay, whenever you're ready, Rinko-chan." Aya gave her a thumbs up. On Rinko's insistence she had agreed to put up a magic barrier anyway, just in case it helped.

"You can do it, Rin-rin!" Ako cheered.

Rinko stared at the mat, and tried to clear her mind. _Visualise_. She could see herself standing on the mat. That was where she was going to go. Not home. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and focused. The sensation of teleporting came over her, and a couple of seconds later she opened her eyes.

"Oh."

She was in her room. It was exactly as she had left it that morning. The computer was off for once, since she had made sure to shut it down before she left. She thought she had felt the temperature shift after teleporting, but she had still hoped. _Now what?_ By her reckoning it had taken Aya about ten minutes to fly them out to camp. So she had to find some way to pass the time. Her heart sunk a little bit. Of course it wasn't reasonable to expect success on the first attempt, but she had thought that maybe with them being all the way out there, and having people cheering for her, things would be different. At least they now knew that Aya's magic barrier didn't stop her, and that her range extended that far. She did her best to tell herself that counted for something. Though maybe closing her eyes when they were going for line-of-sight was a bad idea. She'd have to try to remember to keep them open next time.

It seemed like a waste to turn on the computer for such a short time, so maybe there was a manga she could...

"Huh?" She heard a knock on the window, and saw Aya outside. "Huh?!" She quickly headed over, and opened it. "M-Maruyama-san?"

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Rinko-chan." Aya had a slightly embarrassed smile.

"But... it hasn't even been... a minute." At least Rinko was fairly sure it hadn't. "How fast... are you?"

"Uh... very?"

Rinko had to giggle at such a succinct answer. Maybe she would try to time it next time. Even if hopefully there wouldn't be a next time.

"Come on, Rinko-chan." Aya offered her hand, and Rinko took it as she climbed out the window. For some reason she trusted that she wouldn't fall more than she trusted her own odds at success. "I'll have us back out there right away. Though you might want to close your eyes," Aya said as they floated upwards to get above the rooftops.

Rinko followed her advice. As before she couldn't really feel any movement, so out of curiosity she opened an eye, only to see the landscape fly by so fast she started feeling motion-sick immediately. She hurriedly shut her eye again, and wondered how Aya could stand doing this regularly.

"Okay, we're back."

When Rinko opened her eyes again, thankfully the world was not moving around her.

"Welcome back, Rin-rin!" Ako said as she gave her a hug. "I'm jealous. I want to go that fast too!"

"Ehe..." Rinko wouldn't recommend it, but maybe Ako could handle it better than her.

"Are you ready to try again, Rinko-chan?" Aya asked.

"I think so," Rinko said. Now that she knew failure would only cost her a couple of minutes, which was honestly just time she could take to calm down between attempts, she was a little less worried. A little. "But maybe... we could do it inside?" Unfortunately she had also realised that being out in the open only made her nerves worse. She'd rather show everyone if... no, when she had made progress. And she would feel better about the others not knowing how many times she'd end up failing. Aya could hopefully just sneak out the back to retrieve her without the rest of the club noticing.

"Can I still watch?" Ako asked with big, earnest eyes.

Rinko smiled. "Of course... Ako-chan." Whether Ako's presence would make things better or worse wasn't really relevant when Rinko didn't have the heart to turn her down regardless.

They had to reduce the distance a bit, since there weren't any rooms quite long or wide enough for ten metres, but the goal was the same: Teleport onto the mat.

Several unsuccessful attempts later Rinko was having a hard time keeping her motivation up. And she was starting to feel tired on top of that. She had never teleported that much in such a short time before. It was possible it took more energy than she had thought. Or maybe she was just mentally tired from all the failures. Possibly both. Plus they were running out of time.

"Are you okay, Rinko-chan?" Aya asked as they were returning after the latest failure.

"I'm... yes..." Rinko shook her head. "No. Maybe it's impossible... after all..."

"I don't think so. You are able to do something incredible, Rinko-chan. Believe in yourself."

"But..."

"Rin-rin!" Ako calling out likely meant they were back, so Rinko opened her eyes again.

"Or maybe you can at least believe in how much Ako-chan believes in you," Aya suggested.

"I..." Rinko got another hug, and looked down at her short girlfriend, who was so happy to see her. "Yes, maybe so..."

"Hm? What was that, Rin-rin?" Ako looked up at her.

"Nothing," Rinko said, and smiled back at her. "Okay... I'm ready."

Ako got on her toes, and gave Rinko a quick kiss. It was a little embarrassing with Aya right there, but it still felt nice. "I know you can do it," she said with much more confidence than Rinko thought she had felt about anything in her entire life.

She got back into position, with Aya and Ako on either side of her. _Believe in myself. Trust my power. Believe in Ako. I can do it._ She stared firmly at the mat as she got ready to give it another go. _Deep breath. Focus._ She had clear line of sight. Nothing in the way. She activated her power, and...

"Huh?" _Nothing happened?_ She was still in the same spot, staring at the mat. But she had still felt it, so why...

"Whoa... Rin-rin! That was amazing!" Ako hugged her tight, though Rinko didn't understand why.

"Huh?" She looked at Ako, then at Aya. "What?"

"You vanished for a couple of seconds, then reappeared here," Aya explained.

"I... did?"

"Yeah!" Ako nodded vigorously. "You did it!"

"But I... didn't move..." Rinko didn't exactly feel successful.

"Did you go home before coming back?" Aya asked.

Rinko shook her head. "No..." To her it had appeared almost as if nothing changed, except for the familiar feeling of teleporting.

"Then congratulations," Aya said with a smile. "You were able to teleport without going home."

"But I didn't move..." Rinko repeated. It could have just been because she was too tired to use her teleportation properly.

"I knew you could do it!" Ako definitely sounded excited enough for all three of them. "You were really gone and everything! You'll be able to get to the mat next, but it's so huge that you were able to come right back!"

Rinko relaxed. "Maybe... you are right..." No matter how it had happened, she had finally managed to get a different result. A bit of happiness at that might not be out of order. And maybe a break.

Though it wasn't long after that the door suddenly flew open.

"Aya-san!"

"M-Maya-chan?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is up with Maya? Maybe you'll find out tomorrow.
> 
> And yes, I know the "believe in me who believes in you" thing is a bit cliche, but I like the sentiment.


	4. Day 1: Moca

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to focus only on who Aya is working with, so it's time to check in on what Maya's plan for Moca is. What were they working on while Aya was helping Ako and Rinko?
> 
> I can't think of anything particular to note about this chapter.

While Aya was working with Ako, Maya had suggested to Moca that they find a room inside. Apparently she had a plan. Tsugumi had volunteered to go with them in case she could help with anything.

"What do you have in there, Maya-senpai?" Tsugumi asked.

Maya had only left one of her cases at the ryokan, and taken the other with her back to the training camp.

"Huhehe, let me show you." Maya placed case down, and popped it open.

"Costumes~?" Moca guessed. They certainly looked like unusual clothes.

"Exactly." Maya nodded. "I brought several costumes from the drama club storage."

"Why?" Tsugumi asked. Moca couldn't venture a guess either.

"Well, you see..." Maya lifted up a yellow dress that looked like it had probably been used for a princess in some play. "I gave it some thought, and figured that if I dressed up in various costumes to model for Moca-san, it might help her practice." As the other two were just giving her blank looks, she continued. "You know how sometimes it's easier to build something new than altering something you already have? I thought that maybe trying to change your outfit into something completely different would be more effective than trying to make small changes to what you're already wearing."

"I... think I get it," Tsugumi said, though she didn't sound too sure.

"Do you really think it will work~?" Moca asked. She thought she understood what Maya was saying, but she was less certain of the logic behind it.

"Honestly? I have no idea," Maya admitted with an awkward laugh. "But it's worth a shot, right?"

"Hm... alright~." At the very least Moca would get to see Maya wear all sorts of interesting outfits.

"Oh, and Tsugumi-san? Since you're here, could you also be a model?" Maya asked. "Some of these will fit you better than me."

Tsugumi's eyes went wide. "W-what? Me?!"

"I know it will be embarrassing. Trust me, I know..." Maya didn't sound eager, but like she was at least resigned to the fate she had assigned herself. "But you came along to help Moca-san, right?"

"Oho~." Moca was suddenly looking forward to this even more. They might have to keep it a secret from Sayo though. If she found out Tsugumi had dressed up in all sorts of cute outfits without her getting to see, her heart might be crushed.

"I... I don't think..." Tsugumi slowly took a couple of steps backwards.

"Please, Tsugu~," Moca said as earnestly as she could. "I promise to keep it a secret~." Though internally she wondered if there was any way she could take pictures without getting caught. It would be tough.

Tsugumi's shoulders slumped, and she sighed. "Alright..."

"Thanks, Tsugumi-san." Maya was checking a door at the back of the room from where they entered. "This looks like it should work as a changing room. It'll be easier to get into the costumes if we help each other as well."

"You could just change out here~," Moca said. "It's just us three anyway~."

"I... uh... would rather not," Maya said.

"Hm~. Suit yourself~." Moca wasn't sure if she should feel insulted or not, but she remembered that she used to feel weird about someone seeing her mid-transformation. Maybe it was just something like that. And she supposed it was fair enough not wanting to be seen in your underwear.

Maya and Tsugumi disappeared into the back, while Moca took out her phone to pass the time. The reception was excellent, which surprised her a little. Was it because Japan's mobile tower network had become that good, or perhaps it had something to do with who this place belonged to. Maybe that went into conspiracy theory territory. A tower set up by the nearby town probably had enough range to give full signal out at the camp. They weren't that far out, after all.

Earlier they had brought up the worry that someone might see them, since they were only 10 minutes out of town, and it seemed quite possible someone might happen to take a walk in the area. Aya assured them she had things set up so no one would be able to spy on them, accidentally or not, and Chisato said the whole area was labelled as private property anyway. There hadn't been a fence, but they had passed a sign to that effect. Whether the vampires had any additional security measures she didn't say, but they all decided to trust in Aya's magic at the very least. They had seen several examples of what she had been able to do.

There wasn't exactly a lot happening online though, and she didn't think she had time to start any games. _Time to check twitter._ Ran hadn't tweeted anything so far that day, as expected. It was still early. Neither had Tomoe, even though she had been up a while. Perhaps she was keeping herself busy with other things to avoid worrying about Ako. Himari was going at it exactly as she always did though. Which quickly answered what Tomoe was up to. Himari was tweeting pictures of the two of them. The most recent being at a cafe. _Good job, Hii-chan._ It was nice of her to help keep Tomoe busy, even if it was for her own benefit as well. While she liked teasing them about it, Moca was genuinely happy the two of them had finally managed to start going out. One of those 'better late than never' scenarios.

Thinking about it inspired her to post a couple of lovey-dovey tweets at her dear Ran as well. Hopefully she'd see them soon. She might not tweet a lot, but Moca was reasonably sure she checked the app at least a couple of times a day.

With magic on her mind, that also reminded her of the other Ran. The whole group had been shocked at meeting her, though Ran had looked oddly pleased about it. Moca suspected Aya had something to do with it, but she hadn't been willing to admit anything of the sort. And considering Ran, Himari, and Tomoe didn't know about Aya in the first place, Moca hadn't exactly been able to ask the other Ran a lot of questions about it.

"We're ready," Maya's voice called out just as the door opened. She came out dressed in some sort of woodsman outfit with a triangle cap. At a guess Moca would say it might have been used to play Robin Hood once. Following her came a blushing Tsugumi in the same princess dress Maya had held up earlier. Moca started raising her phone as if on instinct.

Tsugumi spotted her immediately. "Moca-chan!" She pointed at her. "Don't you dare take any pictures, or I'm telling Ran-chan about the time you went-"

"Ah! Okay~, okay~, Moca-chan shall behave~. Your Tsugurificity is intense today~." Moca wasn't sure exactly what Tsugumi had intended to bring up, it could be any number of things, but it was best to not take chances. She placed her phone in her pocket, then had a second thought, and placed it on an empty chair nearby instead. Along with everything else in her pockets. If she actually managed to shape-shift her clothes, she was a little uncertain where anything she carried would go. Maybe it would just drop onto the floor.

She looked at her models. Honestly both outfits looked pretty difficult to her. The dress was probably a bit less so, but maybe that was what Maya meant about building something new.

"Alright~, I shall attempt Maya-senpai's first~."

"Okay!" Maya looked as if she was steeling herself. "Uh... should I pose in some particular way?"

"Well~, if you're offering~..."

"That's Moca-chan's way of saying it isn't necessary," Tsugumi cut in.

"Why are you so determined to ruin all my fun, Tsugu~?" Moca pouted.

"Because we're here to train, and I'm already feeling embarrassed enough."

"Okay~..." No fun allowed. "Well~, could you at least have your arms at your side, Maya-senpai~? I'd like to see the whole outfit properly~."

"I can do that." Maya looked a little stiff, as if she was standing to attention, but at least it let Moca walk around her, and try to take in the details.

In all honesty she wasn't sure how to go about this. Did she just have to imagine herself wearing the same thing? She had been trying a bit on her own in preparation for the camp, but the best she had accomplished was making her current outfit match the colour pattern of what she tried to imitate. Maybe she just had to imagine even more intently. She felt like there was a certain pressure on her to get it.

She stopped in front of Maya again, and tried to concentrate as best she could. While she was good at putting up a carefree front, she was hardly immune to being nervous. Especially since this was to determine whether she could be useful in any way. Or whether the others simply didn't need her. If she wanted to make sure they wouldn't leave her behind, she'd have to prove herself at the camp.

Her body started changing. Maya and Moca were close enough in height that she was able to stretch to match her, and even expand in all the proper locations. She didn't actually gain any mass, it was just rearranging what she already had to appear larger, and more muscular. Merely mimicry. She didn't actually gain Maya's strength, even though that would have been really useful.

"I'm not sure if I will ever get used to seeing you do that, Moca-san," Maya said awkwardly.

"It took me a while," Tsugumi said. "But now it's just... a Moca-chan thing."

"Huhehe. Still, no luck on actually copying the outfit, huh?" Maya fetched a mirror she had brought. Not a full-body one, only as big as she'd been able to fit in the case. She held it up for Moca to see.

"Nice job on matching the pattern, though!" Tsugumi added, clearly trying to see the silver lining.

It did indeed look like Maya staring back at Moca in the mirror, except for what she was wearing. As Tsugumi had said, the pattern of her outfit had changed to match Maya's, with all the lines and colours a nigh-perfect match. Even her hair had taken on the hat's pattern. But the fabric and shape had not changed at all. She hadn't even managed to form Maya's glasses. Still, even though her arms and legs were thicker, her outfit didn't feel any tighter than before. And there was another thing she wanted to check, so she zipped down her re-coloured hoodie.

"What are you doing?" Maya sounded confused.

"Oh, I just wanted to check~... hm~, maybe I should turn away for this~." Moca turned around, and pulled her shirt neck forward to look beneath it. As she had suspected, Maya's chest was more impressive than Moca's, even if it wasn't quite Himari sized. Yet her bra still felt like a good fit, just like always. If only she could figure out how she did that... she let out a slight sigh as she turned back to normal.

"Moca-chan?" There was a touch of concern in Tsugumi's voice.

Moca spun back around. "Okay! Your turn, Tsugu~." She winked before walking a round around Tsugumi, again trying to note as many details as she could. While poor Tsugumi's blush seemed to grow gradually deeper under the scrutiny. The dress looked a lot more elaborate upon examination than it did at first glance. Maybe it wasn't an easier task after all.

Then came the attempt at matching Tsugumi's appearance and outfit. This time she shrank a couple of centimetres, and generally turned a bit smaller in most areas. However her clothes still looked like her own, except for the yellow colouring they had gained. She sighed again as she looked at her reflection.

"Moca-chan..."

"I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong~..." Moca mused out loud. "Or maybe this is all I'm able to do~... all I'll ever~..."

"It's far too early to give up, Moca-san," Maya said confidently.

Tsugumi walked up, and patted Moca on the shoulder. "That's right, Moca-chan. We still have a lot of time to keep going."

"Mm~..." Moca smiled. "Thank you, Tsugu~. Maya-senpai~."

"And... um... imagine how impressed Ran-chan will be when you show her!"

Moca giggled. Tsugumi's attempt at motivating her was so basic. Yet... it kinda worked. If Ran was impressed, that would make it worth it for sure.

They tried another round of shifting into Maya and Tsugumi's current outfits, then the two of them went into the back to change into something else. Maya emerged as some sort of witch, while Tsugumi looked like a Victorian aristocrat. Moca didn't have any more success trying to turn into those outfits though. It was frustrating, yet... there was a strange sensation building in her mind, as if she was approaching something. And she was starting to feel strangely aware of her own changes.

On the next round of costume changes her sleeves felt oddly tight after trying to copy Maya's cowboy outfit, and her hair started to tingle oddly while trying Tsugumi's hippie attire with the weird head-dress. Was she losing control of her power? Or maybe it was because the colour scheme made her eyes swim. Still the odd sensation felt even stronger. Just out of her grasp. If only she could reach a little bit further, she'd find a way to become useful.

The following round was the last of the costumes Maya had brought. She hadn't been able to fit more into the case. A prince outfit that Maya looked more than a little awkward about wearing. It had probably been used by Kaoru, so maybe it was a tad big. And Tsugumi had a generic military uniform that she honestly looked rather silly in. After that they'd have to start over from the beginning. Maya suggested that maybe Moca could think about if any of the costumes had given her a better feeling than the others, and they could try to focus on those.

But at the moment all Moca could think about was the weird sensation in her head. It was like an itch she couldn't figure out how to scratch. Trying to copy those costumes didn't fare any better than any of the previous attempts, but she felt frustratingly close to figuring something out, so she asked them to start over. None of the outfits had really felt any different to try to copy, so she'd rather see the full lineup again.

The lack of success kept up for the next couple of rounds, and in fact she felt like she was struggling more and more. When it came back around to try Tsugumi's hippie outfit once more, it was as if her whole body started to tingle that time, and then like a flash appeared in front of Moca's eyes. Everything suddenly felt more difficult, as if trying to walk through waist-high water.

"M-Moca-chan..."

"Whoa, Moca-san!"

"Eh~?"

Maya quickly held up the mirror, and Moca squinted at it. For some reason it was a little harder to focus, but she could see Tsugumi in her hippie outfit. If that was in the mirror, that meant... she looked down at herself, and patted her clothes. They felt different.

"I... I did~..." Suddenly everything went black.

"Moca-chan!"

Moca felt dizzy. The world was spinning, though it was gradually slowing down, and someone was coming into focus. "Tsugu~?" Was she still looking in the mirror?

"Moca-chan! Are you feeling okay?" Tsugumi sounded very concerned.

"I... don't know~... I think I'm seeing double~."

"Ah. Yeah, I saw you fall, and instantly thought that one of me might not be enough to catch you properly," Tsugumi said.

"Aha~. What~... did I~..." Moca wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to ask. She felt very tired.

"I'm back!"

"W-what's going on, Maya-chan just grabbed me- Moca-chan?!" It was Aya's voice.

"She collapsed," one of the Tsugumis said.

"Heal!"

The room filled with pink light, and Moca started to feel better right away. She slowly got on her feet with the Tsugumis help.

"What happened?" Aya asked. "And why are you dressed like that?"

"W-well, I brought a bunch of costumes for Moca-san to try shape-shifting into," Maya started to explain. "And she finally got one. But it didn't last long before she collapsed."

"I got one~?" That was the most important part to Moca. "I didn't just imagine it~?"

"You really did," Tsugumi confirmed, then sighed. "But I got so worried when you dropped."

"Ehe~. Now you know how we feel about you, Tsugu~." Moca smiled. It seemed like everyone else was converging on the room too, as more and more people appeared at the door.

"Ah... I-I guess so. But maybe we should stop there?" Tsugumi suggested.

"That might be for the best," Maya agreed.

"But I feel like I have it figured out now~," Moca objected. At least she was pretty close.

"Well, judging by the time, maybe we should all take a break for lunch, at least?" Aya suggested, and everyone quickly agreed to it.


	5. Interlude: Lunch Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the full chapter for today, just a quick interlude while I prepare the rest.  
> I could have probably just included it with the actual chapter, but I don't feel like changing perspectives within a chapter. Since this from Misaki's perspective, I wanted to post that on its before putting up Arisa's part shortly after.

They headed back into town, and got some food to bring back to the ryokan, since it was easier for Aya to make sure they were safe from prying ears there than attempting to set up a bubble at a restaurant.

"But you know the worst part, Ako-chan~? Tsugu called me fat~," Moca said. She seemed to have recovered enough to get her sense of humour back.

Ako gasped. "Tsugu-chin did?"

"I did not!" Tsugumi protested.

"You said you needed two of you to hold me, Tsugu~," Moca said.

Tsugumi blushed. "T-that was just to be on the safe side."

"Don't you eat like 10 kilos of bread every day, Moca-chan?" Arisa asked in a snarky tone.

"Only ten~? I need to step up my game~." Moca was certainly devouring a big share of the food they'd bought. She had told them that shape-shifting burned a lot of calories, but even so it seemed excessive.

Then again Rinko seemed to having a bit more than usual as well. They'd heard about her having a breakthrough of her own from a very eager Ako.

Misaki understood very well how they wanted a bit of privacy while training. It wasn't fun to show everyone all the times you failed. She was still looking forward to seeing what everyone had to show afterwards though. As for herself she'd almost gotten a bit bored. All she'd been able to do was hang with Arisa, and watch Sayo throwing punches and kicks at the training dummy. Either the thing was really sturdy, or Sayo was very good at holding back. Maybe a bit of both. Though at the moment Sayo seemed to be sulking for some reason.

Not that there was anything wrong with a bit of boredom. She appreciated being able to relax, but she did feel bad that she was the only one who was not training, or helping anyone train. She hadn't lied when she said she didn't have a particular interest in trying to improve her own powers, especially since she didn't know what to improve anyway. She got over her teething troubles with climbing stuff years ago, and she already worked out regularly so her body shape should be fine. Of course it was hard for her to go all out without breaking things, but she had learned how to work up a sweat nonetheless.

It was just that watching everyone else work so hard made her feel like she should be doing something too. Maybe being a member of Hello, Happy World for so long had made her more restless than she used to be. She always had to help take care of things for the band now, and look out for the members. She had even learned to interpret Kokoro's weird ideas process enough that she could turn those ideas into actual songs for them. And studied song writing to be able to do it. Hopefully they weren't getting into trouble while she was away.

This was first big club activity the SF club had ever had. She couldn't be the only one doing nothing. If she didn't find some way to take part, she knew she'd end up regretting it. In the afternoon she could at least check in on everyone, make sure they had something to drink, and maybe some snacks. She was quick on her feet, so it wouldn't take her long to jog into town to go to the convenience store if they needed something. That would give her time to think about whether there was any sort of training she could do the next day. Regardless she'd have to find some way to keep herself busy while Arisa was doing... whatever it was she intended to do with Aya.

With such a jovial atmosphere around sharing lunch together, it was easy to forget that none of them were exactly normal high school girls.


	6. Day 1: Arisa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go, that's the proper chapter for today, where Arisa grapples with her demons to figure out how to speak to someone telepathically.

Once lunch was over everyone headed back to the training grounds after a quick stop at the convenience store. It was Arisa's turn to get some guidance from Aya, while the rest split up to keep working on various things.

Tsugumi wasn't super happy about Moca wanting to keep going, but the glutton insisted she had gotten an idea of what to do without pushing herself too hard, so her mind was set on trying a bit more. She had even asked Aya a few quiet questions on the way back. Maya also seemed a little wary, but she was still willing to assist. Maybe to help look after Moca.

Rinko had to promise to not overdo it, but was otherwise free to keep trying to make further progress. Ako joined her yet again, since no one had any good ideas for how to further test her vision. Not to mention everyone was worried about her hurting herself again. Misaki had claimed she was brewing on an idea, but wasn't ready to reveal it yet.

Misaki herself seemed to have decided to take on the role of a sort of wellness manager, make sure everyone was doing okay, and that they had what they needed. Arisa had suspected that her friend wouldn't be able to sit idle for too long. They were similar in that respect, considering that Arisa often felt a need to look after Popipa similar to what Misaki did for Hello Happy. Maybe that shared hardship was why they got along so well.

Sayo had returned to the training dummy. She had so far managed to not break it, but if she did, maybe Aya's magic could fix it. Or maybe there were more where it had come from.

Chisato had said she wanted to wander around to see everyone's progress if they were okay with it, and after a brief discussion everyone had agreed. She would presumably watch everyone a bit at a time.

Which left Aya and Arisa.

"So you know telepathy, right, Aya-senpai? Speaking with your mind?"

"Er... sort of," Aya said. "It is how I communicate with the Guardians, but I can only transmit. I don't know how to read minds like you do, Arisa-chan." She sounded apologetic, but it was hard to tell from her mind.

To Arisa it seemed like Aya had the mind of a perfectly normal teenager. Any information about her being a magical girl, or anything related to that, was simply not present. Not even anything revealing about the other club members. All of the thoughts Arisa was able to read seemed perfectly ordinary. She had always thought she was able to find out anything about anyone, sometimes even if she didn't want to, but after learning about Aya and Chisato it made her wonder how much else was hidden to her. Whom else had secrets she could never find out, no matter how hard she tried. It sort of bothered her, even though she had so often thought that she would have preferred not having her ability. Surely knowing there were things she couldn't find out should be a relief.

"That's still good!" Arisa said, then worried maybe she was sounding too eager. "I mean... well... I think I would like to be able to learn how to transmit... to actually talk to people instead of just reading them..." She wasn't sure how much use it would be, since she could only communicate with people already in the know, but that group seemed to be growing steadily. And one day she would like to let all of Popipa know. Not that she really had any idea what she wanted to say either, but being able to communicate silently surely had its uses.

Aya smiled. "I understand. Though..." She stroked her chin. "I'm not sure how to explain what I do. At first I couldn't do it. I just spoke out loud while the Guardians spoke in my mind." Which was pretty much what Arisa did. She would speak, and then read someone's answer from their mind. "But after about a year or so I figured out how to reply with my mind. It was like... I was so certain I should be able to do it, that suddenly it just clicked. Magic works a lot by simply believing that something is supposed to work. If I'd thought too hard about it, there's probably a lot I never would have been able to do."

"Ah..." Arisa wasn't sure how to process that answer. Even though she had always wanted magic to be real, it was still weird to come face to face with it. "But you think about it now?"

"Well, now I already know it works. So I don't need to believe as much. Er... that's not a very helpful answer, is it?"

 _Not really_. Arisa didn't want to say that out loud, though. "I don't suppose it's possible to let me read your mind? Like, just enough to let me see how you do it?" she asked instead.

"Hm..." Aya looked away briefly before facing Arisa again. "No. Sorry. The Guardians will never lower my mental shield, and I can't make special exceptions for anyone. It'd be like a... uh... security vulnerability."

"Oh..." It was almost like talking to a different Aya when she was in 'business mode', if you wanted to call it that. Her voice was much more steady and confident. Not to mention definitive. Arisa sort of got it though. If you gave anyone a back door through your defences, there was the risk that someone else could also find it. Maybe there wasn't much help to get here.

"Ah, um, b-but I'll do my best to come up with some sort of explanation for... uh... visualisation! Or... something." Aya was worried about Arisa seeming to lose heart, she was able to read that much. "Oh! I have an idea. How about I transmit directly to you?"

Arisa blinked. "Huh? But didn't you just say you can't make exceptions?"

"Yes, but I also said that magic works by believing in how it should work. And I believe I should be able to talk directly to your mind, since that technically means you're not reading my mind, you're just receiving the signal I send!" Aya seemed proud of her reasoning. "Maybe experiencing it that way will help you figure something out."

Part of Arisa was tempted to point out the flaws in Aya's logic, but if it was really powered by belief then poking holes in it might be what determined whether or not it worked. And she would prefer if it worked. "Alright. Go for it, Aya-senpai." She could just think about it like how computers were still able to communicate through firewalls.

"Okay!" Aya's expression got serious again, and she looked at Arisa rather intently. A moment or two passed. "No?"

Arisa shook her head.

"Hm... then maybe..."

Arisa really wished she had any sort of idea of what Aya was doing, but as far as she could tell all Aya was thinking about was that she wanted ice cream. Even though it was freezing outside.

_~Arisa-chan? Can you hear me now?~_

"Whoa!" Arisa nearly fell over. "Uh, y-yes."

_~Yay! I'm so glad.~_

That was just about the weirdest sensation Arisa had ever felt. Or at least, it was not quite like anything she had felt before. It felt like a thought, except it was odd in a couple of ways. Strangest of all was how it was crystal-clear. Whenever she read someone's mind, it always had a bit of noise to it. Even what she usually considered a clear, focused thought had some disturbance to it. That was a big part of how she had learned how to distinguish thoughts from speech. There were other indicators too, but that was the biggest one.

"That's so weird..." She couldn't stop herself from airing that thought.

_~I-it is? I'm sorry, should I stop?~_

"Huh? No, that's not what I meant," Arisa said hurriedly. "It's just... not like what I expected." Even if she couldn't say exactly what she had expected in the first place. Something closer to what she had done with Rinko, probably. A somewhat rambling line of communication that had a tendency to stray off topic. What Aya was doing sounded just like regular speech, yet somehow still feeling like a thought. She could not describe with words how that was being communicated since so many of the usual identifiers were gone, but it was there. Maybe that was just how telepathic speech worked, or maybe that was part of Aya's magic.

_~So? Is it helping?~_

_How would this help on its own?_ "I'm not sure. I'd like to know how you're doing it, if you could explain, Aya-senpai?"

_~Well... at first I tried just doing what I always do. Open my mind, and think in clear sentences. Like... vocalise what I want to say without the actual vocal part, you know?~_

"Uh... huh..." Arisa wasn't sure if she knew.

_~But that just reaches the Guardians. It's a direct line. A magical girl is not actually supposed to talk to anyone else that way.~_

That made a certain amount of sense. _Wait, does that mean she really is abusing her power?_ Maybe that was another thing it was best to leave unsaid.

_~So then I figured I had to focus on you specifically. Though it took me a couple of tries to figure out the right way, since I've never done it before.~_

"I see..." That explained the intense stare. "What was the right way?"

_~Uh... hm... I guess you can't just figure it out from hearing me, huh? This has to be the visualisation part. Okay, I'll try to explain.~_

Aya tried her best to explain how she had put Arisa in focus, sort of sitting at the front of her mind, where they could have a conversation. She also made an attempt at further explaining how she went about transmitting her thoughts in the first place.

Though she had to ask her to repeat a few things, Arisa thought she was getting an idea of what Aya was saying. And in theory she believed it should be easier for her, since she could already feel where Aya's mind was. So focusing in on that shouldn't be a huge problem. In theory.

_Hello?_

In practice she wasn't having any success. _Clear sentences. Vocalise._ That was what she tried to focus on, but it felt like she was just thinking normally. Before this she had only worked on not getting overwhelmed by people's thoughts, and trying to read only what she wanted to. She wouldn't call herself especially proficient at it yet. Even the few times she had considered telepathic speech, she hadn't felt okay about practising it. It was awkward to ask about intruding on someone's mind like that, especially when she was already being intrusive in other ways. She didn't want to push her luck, and she might just be wasting the other person's time anyway if she didn't succeed. Ideally she'd prefer to practice without monopolising someone's time or attention, but if she suddenly succeeded she might seriously spook the person.

_Hello?_

The camp was different. They came here specifically to train. It was okay. The others had already had their time. It was okay if she took hers. But she started to feel gradually less okay as the lack of success persisted. The way Aya was just waiting patiently without rushing her almost made things worse.

_Aya-senpai?_

Arisa sighed.

 _~Arisa-chan?~_ Aya gave her a curious look. She finally said something, but it seemed to be in response to the sigh rather than Arisa's repeated attempts to call out.

"I'm sorry, Aya-senpai. It's not working." And it didn't feel like she was making any progress either. Just stumbling on the first step every time.

_~H-hey, no need to be sorry. Like I said, it took me over a year to figure it out.~_

"I'd prefer going a bit faster than that." _Besides, it didn't sound like you were actively trying for a whole year._ From how Aya had explained it, Arisa's impression was that she had gotten it pretty fast once she started trying.

 _~Do you want to take a break?~_ Aya asked. _~I think we're getting close to an hour.~_

"A-already?" Arisa checked her phone. She hadn't looked at the exact time when they started, but it had probably been at least three quarters of an hour. "Um... well, maybe you could explain how you transmit again? Maybe I missed something..."

Aya smiled. _~Of course.~_

There wasn't anything that stood out to Arisa though. Maybe it was her own way of thinking that was wrong. Moca and Rinko had both managed to make some progress, yet she felt utterly stuck. _What am I doing wrong?_ What if Aya's method didn't work for her at all? She agreed to a short break so she could think things through a little. Banging her head against the proverbial wall in an attempt to brute-force it might never get her anywhere. But getting some water wouldn't hurt.

When she thought about it rationally she knew she was being hard on herself. _I've never done anything like this before. Of course it's going to take time. I didn't learn the piano in a single day either._ Though as she thought that she felt something stir in the back of her mind. A flash of memory sneaked forth. The last day she had regularly attended school until meeting Kasumi. When she hadn't been able to take the bullying any longer. She had wanted to tell them to stop. Just stop. It wasn't her fault. So she had... reached out... yelled at them... and they had stopped. No... she had done more than that...

She tried to shake off the memory. It made her feel dirty. Oily. Slimy. Unfortunately it might also be the key. If only she could remember how she had reached out... but without going too far this time.

"Arisa-chan?"

Arisa jumped, and looked up. It was Aya. Speaking out loud this time.

"You're looking a bit pale. Are you okay?"

"I-I'm alright," Arisa said, even if it wasn't strictly true. "Just remembered something..."

"Something?" Aya sat down next to her.

"Yeah... I think I have tried this before..." Arisa didn't feel like sharing the whole memory. Even though she probably should talk to someone about it. Preferably a therapist, but even with doctor-patient confidence she didn't think it was something safe to share. "But I think someone got hurt..." she settled for saying.

"Oh... so you're worried you'll hurt someone again?"

Arisa clenched her water bottle. "Yeah..." If that had been sitting in her subconscious all this time, it was probably at least part of it.

Aya placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Then it's a good thing you have me."

Arisa blinked, and looked at Aya. "Eh?"

"Uh... I mean, since there's no way you can hurt me," Aya said, as if that explained everything.

It did not. "Why do you say that?"

"Because the Guardians protect my mind. No human can break through that."

Such absolute confidence. Arisa couldn't think of a response to that. But maybe that was also part of the power of belief. Aya didn't seem to have a single shred of doubt, which was baffling. Arisa didn't think she had been that certain about anything in her whole life. Well... perhaps with the exception of Kasumi's overflowing love.

"So you see, it's safe to practice on me however you want." That was Aya's conclusion. It was remarkable how reliable she seemed, compared to the Aya everyone was used to. All Arisa could do was decide whether or not to trust her. And whether to trust herself.

"Alright. I'm ready to keep trying." She wasn't sure if she trusted herself, that was too big of a question at the moment, but trusting Aya was something she could probably do. She just needed to believe. Simple, right?

They got back into position, and Arisa was prepared to do some soul-searching. Maybe 'prepared' was a strong word for it, but she was going to try.

~Ready when you are, Arisa-chan.~

'Ready' was another strong word for how she was feeling. _What did I do?_ No, that might not be the best angle to approach it from. She didn't really want to know that. _How did I do it?_ That was what she needed. And only how she had reached out. How she had connected.

_Hello?_

No, that wasn't it. She could tell right away.

_Hello?_

That wasn't quite right either. It wasn't easy to ignore all the darkness swirling around, but she was quite used to burying her emotions. It wanted to drag her into remembering more, but she could hold it off long enough. She just needed to believe. She needed to...

_Hello? H- ~Hello?~_

Aya's expression lit up. _~Hello, Arisa-chan!~_

_~Huh? I... I-I did it?~_

_~You did it!~_

_~I did it...~ I did it._ The relief Arisa felt was overpowering. Both from succeeding, and from not having to tread so close to that oily darkness any longer. Her eyes started to sting.

_~Arisa-chan?~_

"I... I did it..." Her voice cracked. She had been so scared. Scared it would grab her, and pull her in too deep. But she had done it.

"Ah! H-hang on, I have tissues somewhere!" Aya started scrambling for her purse, then got up, apparently realising she had left it somewhere else.

Arisa was feebly trying to hold back, but it was too much. "Waaaaahhhhhhhh!"

Aya came rushing back with a pack of tissues, only to accidentally tear it open, and spill them all over the table. She quickly grabbed one, and moved to try to dry Arisa's eyes. "H-here you go, Arisa-" But Arisa grabbed onto her, and buried her face in her shirt instead. "-chan?!"

"W-what's going on?" It was Misaki's voice.

"Uh... we had a breakthrough..." Aya said in an awkward tone.

"... no kidding."

Arisa would later try to find some way to explain herself that didn't sound too pathetic, simply because she didn't really want to admit the truth. Getting anyone to actually believe her would be a different problem entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will I ever explore the other thing Arisa did in her traumatic moment? I don't know yet.


	7. Day 1: Chisato

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly shorter chapter today, but I wanted to get Chisato's perspective on things as well.
> 
> I've been lured by the sirens to write other things the past couple of days, so hopefully that doesn't imperil my schedule. I currently have chapters to post all the way until Monday, but I might have to put in some extra effort this weekend.
> 
> Side-note: I went back and redid some of the earlier chapters as I realised I copied over the wrong version of the text, so some of the formatting is gone. Oops. I will try to remember to do it right in the future.

Chisato might seem like a calm observer on the outside, but on the inside she was positively giddy. She might be the first vampire in all of history to experience something like this. They had known the triggering event was coming, even if they hadn't known exactly when. Honestly that was part of the reason she had reverted to a child. As soon as they detected it happening, she had made the choice to revert, so she could 'grow up' again alongside the activated humans. It was the final push she had needed. She had hoped it would give her a better chance of actually finding any of them. Her current situation exceeded her wildest expectations.

If she could write a book on what she learned here, it might make her a celebrity. In the vampire world, at least. She already kinda was in the human world, at least in a small capacity, but her book might become essential reading among her peers. Her family's status would rise considerably. Okay, maybe that was going a bit far. Super-powered humans were hardly a crucial issue to vampire society as a whole. But they were a prominent enough topic that it would make an impact.

She had been really curious if they would actually be able to produce any results. The most encouraging evidence in favour of that was Misaki stating she had developed some of her powers later in life, and Tsugumi gaining more copies as she grew older. And then they had gone ahead and made progress on the very first day. A testament to the human spirit, perhaps? Or simply a result of them not seriously trying before? She acknowledged there had been issues preventing them from doing so. Circumstances were never as ideal as you'd like them to be.

It might not be the kind of progress those in question were hoping for. Rinko had gone from always teleporting back home, to being able to blink in and out on the spot. Moca had been able to change her outfit once before passing out, and was apparently having some issues recreating her results in a safer way. But in Chisato's mind it was huge that they had managed to do anything new at all. Maya had asked if Chisato wanted to join in on modelling, but she had declined. She had already spent most of the time before lunch either watching Sayo, talking with Arisa and Misaki, or reading a book, since the others had decided to do their training behind closed doors. Now that she was allowed to peek in on all of them, she wanted to make the most of that.

And to think that without Aya they might not have achieved any of this. When it came to her powers, she displayed a confidence she certainly didn't have about anything else in her life. An interesting contrast, that honestly just made her even more attractive. The super-powered kids had formed the club on their own, but they had needed Aya's help to make this camp happen. Though it would have been interesting to see how they had managed on their own.

It also made Chisato wonder if anything similar had happened in the past. There had been other magical girls and triggering events before, so maybe they had also interacted before. The vampires didn't have any records on that, though. And any sort of records on Aya's side would be kept by those enigmatic 'Guardians'. She had never seen them mentioned in any texts she had looked up, so she had no idea what they could be. Or what else like them could be hiding somewhere in the world. She recalled what Aya had said about how the 'Guardians' had told her they weren't the only power at play in the world. If they governed magic, what else was being governed, and by whom? But even if she devoted the rest of her life to investigating, Chisato wasn't sure she'd come up with any answers.

For the moment she returned to watching Sayo play with the training dummy. She didn't want to diminish Sayo's efforts, but 'play' still felt like the best word for it. The dummy was made to withstand a vampire's strength, and she honestly wasn't sure if Sayo matched, or exceeded that. If she had to make a guess she'd say Sayo exceeded a vampire in raw strength, so the fact that she hadn't demolished the dummy was probably a sign of her ability to hold back. But otherwise her performance was lacking.

"Have you studied any martial arts, Sayo-chan?"

Sayo threw another punch at the dummy's chest. It had acquired several dents, but it was still holding up. "Only archery."

"I see. Your posture is very good." Chisato meant that. She had heard that archers needed to be very particular about that. "But your technique is... not good." She didn't want to sound too rude, but also didn't think there was any reason to sugar-coat things.

Sayo's stance relaxed, and she took a step back from the dummy. "Taking classes in any contact martial arts is difficult. I could seriously hurt someone."

That was a valid concern. "So that's why you want to spar with Aya-chan."

"Yes."

"But just flailing isn't going to get you anywhere," Chisato pointed out. And based on what Aya had said, she might not be the best teacher. You could learn from watching her, but she could probably not explain things very well. "Have you considered watching instructional videos?"

"I looked at some to prepare for the camp, but I don't pick things up as quickly as Hina."

Hina was definitely a bit of an anomaly. Chisato had wondered if she was affected by the triggering event, or whether she would have turned out that way regardless. With a talent like Hina's there was really no reliable way to say for sure.

Still, that explained some of Sayo's movements. They were far from optimal, but she was probably trying to recreate something she had seen in a video. That didn't necessarily mean she would gain much more from sparring with Aya though. Perhaps...

"If you would like, I could give you some pointers, Sayo-chan."

Sayo raised an eyebrow. "You know martial arts, Shirasagi-san?"

"Yes." It wasn't quite like any human martial art, but... "Every vampire needs to know how to defend themselves, as disagreements do occur from time to time." Not to mention assassination attempts. If you were fighting someone of equal or superior strength, you needed technique (and maybe some luck) to win out.

"I see. Then I would be happy to accept." It was unclear whether Sayo completely trusted Chisato yet, but at least she didn't seem to fear her, so that was something.

Chisato stepped up to the dummy. "I am a bit rusty, as it's been a while since I've had to use these skills, but I will do my best." She hadn't needed to fight anything since she had reverted, and even before then things had been peaceful for decades. Not to mention her dislike of exercise. Keeping up with martial arts lessons did not tempt her in the least, but her parents had made sure to drill a lot of it into her across her long life. Surely some of that still sat in muscle memory. She threw a couple of practice punches, and nodded slightly. The movements still seemed to be there, if a bit slow.

 _So much for remaining a neutral observer_ , she halfheartedly scolded herself. But if really wanted these kids... no, if she really wanted her friends to grow, then just sitting on the sidelines wasn't good enough. Hopefully she wouldn't work up much of a sweat. Her sunblock should hold regardless, but she didn't like feeling sweaty. They were going to a hot spring later, but even so.

What would her mother think about her teaching a human to fight like a vampire? If Sayo decided to become a hunter, Chisato would have simply prepared her better for it. All she could do was trust her, and for some reason she did. Sayo didn't seem like the type who would get wrapped up in something like that. It wasn't like she had time to teach her everything anyway. They might just barely manage to cover the basics for the moment, and maybe that would be all they'd ever do.

"Now watch closely, Sayo-chan," she said, and started showing the strikes she had been once been taught herself. "You have to know not only how to strike, but where to strike." She demonstrated both slowly to show to do it, and at regular speed to show what it would look like normally. She repeated the movements for several minutes before stepping away. "Now you try."

Sayo nodded, and took her place, while Chisato found a good spot to observe. It was a little better than her earlier play, but would still need a lot of work.

"It's fine to merely practice the motions on the dummy, but remember that against a live opponent you always have to strike to incapacitate. If you're not serious, but your opponent is, you could be at a fatal disadvantage." Maybe that was being a bit dramatic, and hopefully Sayo would never be in such a position, but Chisato had been told that line so many times that it just came out of her mouth automatically. Even if 'incapacitate' wasn't always the word her instructors had used.

She kept giving pointers on Sayo's stance, her movements, and her accuracy, while occasionally stepping in to demonstrate something. It even occurred to her to mark out spots on the dummy that corresponded with vulnerable areas on a body to aim for. It was a lot of repetition, but presumably Sayo was used to that from her guitar practice. Her strikes slowly became more confident, though she'd still need a lot of training to face someone skilled, even at a basic level.

"Okay." She clapped her hands twice. "Next I want to cover some basic footwork. Being able to hit a target is good, but avoiding being hit yourself is probably even more important." Archery required being able to stand still to land the perfect shot, but close combat was more about manoeuvring.

While she might not be as quick of a study as Hina, Sayo still got the idea reasonably fast. Her movements weren't exactly elegant, but it seemed like more practice was basically all she needed. How much was impossible to say. A full week of lessons would probably give her a decent chance against a novice. But a rookie with basic training complete... well, with her strength it was possible Sayo only needed to hit once. That would be where luck came in.

For a moment Chisato entertained the idea of instructing Hina, who would undoubtedly pick things up at a blistering speed, so she could keep instructing Sayo in Chisato's stead, but that would be opening a whole can of worms that no one was fully prepared for. Even telling Hina that she was a vampire felt too daunting, not to mention what Sayo's feelings on the matter would be.

Chisato checked the time. It wasn't that long until Sayo's slot with Aya. For what little time they'd had, Sayo had done alright. Though they still needed more time to make her decent. The vampire wondered if she had inadvertently taken responsibility for that now. She had dodged sports day and as many gym classes as she could for years, yet all of a sudden she was acting like a coach. Granted she didn't have to be super active herself, it was mostly guiding Sayo on what to do, but it was still more activity than intended. Unfortunately she was honestly far too busy to become Sayo's full-time coach. So why did she have a feeling, or even a premonition, that she would be coaching Sayo the next day as well? The curse of being raised to be a responsible girl.

"Sayo-chan." She called out to Sayo, who stopped, and looked at her. "It's almost time for you to face Aya-chan, so how about warming up on me first?"

Sayo's eyes went wide. "What?"

"Dummies make for poor opponents, so I challenge you to land a hit on me." Chisato stretched her limbs. "I know I haven't taught you a lot yet, but I am not exactly at my full power during the day, so that should serve as a handicap." Not that she expected Sayo to be able to land a hit even so, but practising on a moving opponent was still a better warm-up for facing the most powerful being on the planet. "I only intend to defend, so... uh... I would appreciate if you don't hit with all your might." It was extremely unlikely she would die, but she might not be able to recover until night arrived.

Sayo turned to face Chisato, and went into basic combat stance as she had been shown. "What happened to always strike to incapacitate?"

Chisato assumed her own stance, wondering if that was meant as a joke. "Of course you should be serious about trying to hit me." It wouldn't be worth much as training if she didn't. "But if you connect I'm not sure I can withstand your full force."

"Understood. I'll go with the same level as against the dummy, then."

Even that might be a bit much in Chisato's current state, but at least she should be able to recover from that. Not that she intended to be hit in the first place, but one should always prepare for the worst. "Okay. Then come at me."

As she had expected Sayo's movements were swift, but rough. It didn't take a lot of effort for Chisato to dodge, parry, or deflect her strikes. Though she could sense enough power in them that she wanted to avoid directly blocking any of them unless she absolutely had to. That was sure to sting.

Though Sayo was trying to change up her approach a bit to match Chisato's counters, she didn't pose much of a threat. It gave Chisato insight into how to further direct her training, so that was worth the exercise. She realised she was already taking it for granted that she would continue with this. _Oh well._

"Waaaaahhhhhhhh!"

A sudden outcry caused them both to freeze.

"Wha-"

"What was that?" Sayo asked.

"It sounded like Arisa-chan? Maybe we should go check?"

Sayo nodded, and they both headed in that direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun to get a bit of lore-dump in there, and Chisato and Aya are definitely the best characters for that.


	8. Day 1: Sayo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's finally Sayo's turn. Some amount of it is just events from Chisato's chapter, but from Sayo's perspective. I hope you still enjoy it.

The training dummy Chisato had found for Sayo gradually looked worse and worse as the day went on. She had managed to not break it, but it was certainly dented. It didn't really feel like progress, though. She was trying to do as she had seen in the videos she had looked up, but without the ability to further reference them she couldn't really check what she was doing wrong, or figure out how to do it right.

She definitely should have planned better. Outside of asking Aya for a sparring session, and finding some way to warm up, Sayo hadn't really put enough thought into what she was going to do while she waited. She had been too preoccupied with her concern for the others. Her first idea had been taking it out on a tree, but Chisato had brought up the training equipment they had on the grounds, and shown Sayo the training dummies. It was easy enough to carry one outside, and set it up.

But lunch had come and gone, breaks had been taken, water consumed, and nothing that felt like progress had been achieved. There wasn't even any aching in her hands or arms. She was too resilient to really feel it. It was a bit frustrating. She hadn't even gotten to watch Tsugumi dress up in cute costumes.

She took another break to stretch, even if she didn't really need it. The place was pretty impressive. It looked very inconspicuous. Not somewhere anyone was likely to target, yet it had several rooms with various equipment and layouts. She wondered what sort of training, or meetings, the vampires conducted here. For all she knew it might just be a resort where they went to get some peace and solitude. At a hunch she'd say the resident vampire wouldn't tell her even if she asked. And she still wasn't sure why she had come along.

While she wouldn't go so far as to say she didn't trust her, Sayo still felt a little wary about Chisato. She was a vampire, after all. Everyone present was unusual, but unlike the rest of them, vampires had a reputation for preying on humans. She wasn't worried for herself, but for the others. Except vampires shouldn't exist, but then again the same could be said of Sayo and the rest of the club. There wasn't really a rational explanation for any of it. At least none that they were aware of. It didn't seem like either Aya or Chisato had been lying when they said they didn't know why this had happened, or who had done it. So all Sayo could do was accept it.

She got back to her workout, but after a couple of minutes she heard: "Have you studied any martial arts, Sayo-chan?"

Apparently Chisato had come back to watch her more. She'd done that a fair amount before lunch, but Sayo had expected her to spend more time elsewhere after they returned. "Only archery," she replied while throwing another punch at the dummy.

"I see. Your posture is very good. But your technique is... not good."

That wasn't really news to Sayo, and she recognised it wasn't meant as an insult. Merely a factual observation. "Taking classes in any contact martial arts is difficult. I could seriously hurt someone." Just one miscalculated punch or kick could cripple a regular person. Or worse.

"So that's why you want to spar with Aya-chan."

"Yes," Sayo confirmed, even though it hadn't sounded like a question.

"But just flailing isn't going to get you anywhere," Chisato pointed out. "Have you considered watching instructional videos?"

Sayo frowned slightly. "I looked at some to prepare for the camp, but I don't pick things up as quickly as Hina." She would have been a master already if that had been the case. _I'm still not able to stop comparing myself to Hina, huh? I need to be better than that._ The phone's screen was too small to properly review the videos, but maybe she should have brought a tablet or laptop for that purpose. Maybe it still wasn't too late to ask Aya to help her fetch one.

"If you would like, I could give you some pointers, Sayo-chan."

Sayo raised an eyebrow. "You know martial arts, Shirasagi-san?" She hadn't expected that.

"Yes. Every vampire needs to know how to defend themselves, as disagreements do occur from time to time."

That made sense when she put it like that. If you were fighting someone of equal power to yourself, then the best trained one would likely win. "I see. Then I would be happy to accept." It sounded like a better idea than 'just flailing', as Chisato had put it.

So their training commenced. The vampire said she was rusty, though Sayo had no basis to judge that on. The important part was how much easier it felt to grasp things when she had an instructor. And she realised it would be hard to replicate with a human. Of course if it was just someone instructing her how to hit an inanimate target that was one thing, but as soon as she had to go up against another living person, she would be putting them at risk.

"Always strike to incapacitate," Chisato told her.

Sayo wasn't sure if that was tenet was common to other martial arts. She'd have to read up more on them to be sure, but it made sense. If you didn't take it seriously, you were just doing yourself a disservice. While there were certainly some similarities between what she had seen in videos, and what she was currently being taught, she wasn't sure if it was actually a known human martial art, or something the vampires themselves had come up with. Another thing it might be useful to look up later.

She wasn't sure why Chisato had suddenly stepped up, and offered to help, but it was useful. It might be worth it to ask for further instruction. Both the next day, and maybe further into the future. Everyone in the club could do amazing things, but Sayo felt like it was her duty to look after them, since she was the one best equipped to do so. With an instructor to teach her how to fight that would be much easier than figuring it all out on her own. It would be preferable if she never needed such skills, but...

She had not been able to stop thinking about the day that _thing_ appeared. Even as the strongest one there she had been practically powerless. Everyone had done their best, but they had been saved by a miracle, not by their own efforts. It was frustrating. So she had vowed then that she would become better. She had to. They couldn't always rely on miracles. If the others hadn't proposed the training camp first, she probably would have done so herself eventually. Perhaps that meant the others shared her frustration.

"Sayo-chan." Chisato suddenly called out to her, so she stopped, and looked at her. "It's almost time for you to face Aya-chan, so how about warming up on me first?"

Sayo's eyes went wide. "What?"

"Dummies make for poor opponents, so I challenge you to land a hit on me." Chisato stretched her limbs. "I know I haven't taught you a lot yet, but I am not exactly at my full power during the day, so that should serve as a handicap. I only intend to defend, so... uh... I would appreciate if you don't hit with all your might."

Sayo turned to face Chisato, and went into basic combat stance as she had been shown. "What happened to always strike to incapacitate?" She meant that partially as a joke, but it didn't appear that Chisato recognised it as such.

The vampire assumed her own stance, and Sayo could immediately tell how much more fluid it looked. "Of course you should be serious about trying to hit me, but if you connect I'm not sure I can withstand your full force."

That surprised Sayo a little. What exactly did Chisato mean by that? Regardless it seemed like a reasonable enough request. "Understood. I'll go with the same level as against the dummy, then."

"Okay. Then come at me."

Sayo tried to strike swift and true, but Chisato didn't appear to have any trouble avoiding or swatting aside her blows. Of course they had probably not even reached two hours of instruction, but it still felt frustrating that she seemed to stand no chance. She was observing Chisato's movements, and tried to change up her own patterns a bit, but it really seemed hopeless.

 _No, that's the wrong way to think about it_ , she scolded herself. Chisato wasn't a target to hit, she was a goal to reach. That had to be what the vampire wanted to show her. If she kept working hard on her training, she would one day be able to fight as her equal. Just not that day. Still... it had been a challenge. Her pride really wanted her to manage to land a hit. Was there any way she could...

"Waaaaahhhhhhhh!"

They both froze.

"Wha-"

"What was that?" Sayo asked.

"It sounded like Arisa-chan? Maybe we should go check?"

Sayo nodded, and they both headed in that direction. It had occurred to her that she might have had a chance to land a hit while Chisato was distracted, but she wanted to do it fairly, not cheaply.

What they found was Aya and Misaki consoling a sobbing Arisa. It was hard to figure out what was going on, but apparently there had been some sort of breakthrough, followed by a breakdown. After they got Arisa to calm down they learned that she had been successful in communicating telepathically with Aya, and that had made her very emotional. Even if she was trying to downplay that part of it already.

Not that Sayo could really blame her. She was also used to suppressing a lot, and it wasn't pretty when the dam burst. At least this seemed to have been the good kind of burst. Probably.

With that matter settled, it was time for the showdown. Hikawa Sayo against the miracle: Maruyama Aya. Even among everyone else present, Aya seemed like an impossible existence.

"Um... you don't have to hold back, Sayo-chan," Aya said as the two of them took up their positions. While everyone had come out to look (who could blame them), Chisato made sure they all kept a safe distance. "I can take it."

It didn't sound like a boast, more like a simple statement of fact. As bumbling as she could otherwise be in class or on stage, she seemed to never waver when it came to her powers. Sayo couldn't even imagine everything she must have been through in the years she was active as a magical girl. They had only seen the briefest glimpse of it, and heard what few stories she had been willing to share.

Yet... in the absence of anything else to really direct it towards, Aya had also become the focus of Sayo's frustration. She knew full well that it was unfair. Of course she deeply respected Aya's dedication, heart, and strength. And she was going above and beyond to help the club out. She deserved gratitude. But whenever Sayo looked at her, she couldn't help feeling inadequate. It was like her and Hina all over again.

"Here I come, Maruyama-san."

Sayo flew right at her, and delivered a punch straight forward. Aya merely crossed her arms, and took the hit right on the wrists. It felt like punching a wall. If it wasn't for her resilience, Sayo had a feeling that could have hurt her hand.

As she tried to move into a more focused attack style using the basics she had just been taught, the difference between Aya and Chisato immediately struck her. What Aya said about fighting on instinct made sense. She was stopping or evading everything Sayo tried to hit her with, but she wasn't using any apparent style the way Chisato had. She was simply reacting in the most appropriate manner. As if it was merely natural to her.

It was a fact that she couldn't overcome this. Not at her current level. Maybe not ever. But that just made Sayo want to try even harder.

She took enough of a step backwards to get room to launch a spin-kick. That wasn't something she had trained so far, but she was technically untrained in everything, so by that reasoning she might as well try anything she could think of.

A strange sense of elation started filling her. She had never been able to go all out against anything. She'd always had to hold back for fear of hurting someone, or breaking something. But Aya just took the full brunt of what Sayo could do, and didn't even flinch. It felt liberating to just let loose. There had been no chance for her to test her full strength before. If Aya was so certain there was no need to hold back, then there would be no holding back.

Sayo put all she could muster into every blow, and she felt it. Her muscles were starting to ache, and her breathing grew heavy. She was getting tired, and it was great. She couldn't remember ever feeling this worn out by anything. At least not physically. How far could she push herself?

As she started to feel sluggish, as her body just wanted her to stop, she gathered every bit of power she had left, and sent her fist flying directly at Aya's chest. Where it got blocked by the magical girl's crossed arms just like the first punch had been, but this time it caused quite the shockwave to fly out from their position.

Sayo stood there for a while just drawing deep breaths, and otherwise not moving.

"Are you done?" Aya asked.

"Yes." Sayo legs buckled, and she fell onto her butt. "Yes, I'm done."

Aya looked worried. "A-are you okay, do you want me to heal-"

"No." Sayo slowly shook her head. She wanted to recover from this normally. "Thank you, Maruyama-san. Truly. Thank you." As tired as she was, she also felt strangely light. As if some weight had been taken off her back. She felt satisfied.

"Ah. You're welcome, hehe~."

"Sayo-san!" Suddenly Sayo was being hugged by Tsugumi. "Are you okay?!"

"Yes," Sayo said again. "I'm good. I'm also sweaty, Tsugumi-san." She would have blushed if she had the energy, but she was probably red enough regardless.

"I don't care." Tsugumi just hugged even tighter. Which ached a little, but it wasn't a bad feeling.

"That was amazing, Sayo-san!" That excited voice could only belong to Ako. "It made my hair rise. Literally! Your... your powerful blows caused a... a dark wind that..."

Sayo looked over at Ako as she paused, and saw Rinko whispering in her ear.

"A dark wind that stirred my very soul, and lifted my demonic spirits. And my hair!" Her voice turned giddy again at the end. "Just when you hit, it was like... BAM! WOOSH! So cool!!!" Rinko was nodding eagerly alongside her.

"Yeah, that was pretty crazy, Sayo-senpai." That sounded like Misaki. Everyone had probably gathered around them, but it was hard for Sayo to stretch her neck to look with Tsugumi hugging her. "I feel like I just witnessed something out of this world."

"And Aya-senpai just stopping blows that literally sent my twintails flying. I'm not sure if I'm more scared or impressed," Arisa said.

"H-hey, I'm not scary!" Aya protested.

"You're... kinda scary, Aya-san," Maya said.

"Hey!"

That sent a ripple of laughter through everyone.

Sayo noticed two small marks on the ground where Aya had stood. As if it had been left by her boots after she got pushed backwards a little. Just a little, but Sayo would accept that as her victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow is the last chapter of day 1, and then day 2 begins. I don't intend day 2 to be as detailed, and it probably won't be as many chapters. I mostly want to focus on getting some perspectives on those who didn't get a chapter in day 1, and on anyone getting further developments. Also giving Ako a bit more of the spotlight since she's been so under-served for the rest of the series. I love that little gremlin.
> 
> At current writing I am three chapters deep in day 2, have plans for two more, and then an epilogue. Of course, plans can always change, so we'll see.


	9. Nighttime and Reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly shorter chapter to cap off the first day of camp. Day two of camp starts tomorrow. I definitely need to get a bunch more writing done this weekend.

After that display they decided to call an end to that day's training. There was still some daylight left if anyone wanted to check something out in town, but they made a unanimous decision to stop by the hot springs first. Everyone let out sighs of relief at entering the warm water, whether it was because they'd worked up a sweat, or were affected by the chilly air. Moca was apparently so pleased that she went transparent under the water. Only the parts of her that stuck up were visible. Though it didn't take long for Tsugumi to poke her into behaving, since they weren't the only guests around.

Aya had finally released her magical girl transformation before they went back to town, which felt weird after being transformed for a whole day. But hopefully there wouldn't be any more need for it until the next day. The bout with Sayo had been interesting, even if it had just been Aya acting like a target. The blows had not hurt her, but she had still felt the power in them. Earlier on in her career she might have been in trouble. Heck, if she hadn't blocked those last hits, the final one especially, she definitely would have felt it. She'd had worse (much worse), but it was still impressive. Sayo was stronger than some invaders she had faced, and could maybe grow even stronger.

For a moment she worried about someone with that amount of power turning evil. Not because she thought they could beat her, but because she worried that the Guardians might not tell her. Her duty was clear: Guard the planet from any external threats. Which included things like invaders, aliens, and travellers from alternate worlds. And technically also magical threats, since the magic was the Guardians' responsibility, and anyone else trying to use that for their own aims required Aya's intervention.

But it did not include other humans, or other things deemed as internal threats. No interfering in wars, or fighting crime. That was a different jurisdiction, even if she didn't know whose. Of course she would help anyone she came across, regardless of any jurisdiction issues, but no one would inform her of those things happening. Maybe the powers that be preferred to leave humans to their own on that part. But someone had activated all the super-powered humans, like the club members, and the Guardians wouldn't tell her who. Surely there had to be a reason for it. Maybe someone smarter than her could have figured it out.

In dark hours she had wondered what would happen if humans were ever deemed a threat to the planet itself.

Once everyone dragged themselves out of the rejuvenating waters, it was time to get dinner. They found a place where Sayo could load up on her beloved potato fries, since they figured she had earned it. She tried to play it cool until it was time to order, and then her true feelings were revealed. Everyone else found something they wanted as well. There was less open chatter than there had been at lunch, since it had been a long day for everyone. Not to mention Aya couldn't shield them from anyone who might happen to listen in this time. So it was mostly quiet conversations.

After all food had been consumed, it was up to the various members what they wanted to do for the rest of the day. Arisa, Maya, Misaki, and Moca went off to find souvenirs for band members and loved ones; Ako and Rinko had brought portable consoles, and retreated to the ryokan to play games; Sayo and Tsugumi decided to go for a walk together; and Aya and Chisato decided to follow their example. Everyone would return to the inn at their own convenience.

The sun had gone down shortly after they began walking, so Chisato had perked up a bit. She was good at disguising her discomfort during daytime activities after who even knew how many years of experience. Most people probably never noticed, but now that Aya had gotten to know her so well she could tell there was a bit of extra spring in her step.

There was no one out here to recognise them, so Aya felt bold enough to take Chisato's hand as they found a nice direction to walk where they got to see some of the town. The air was crisp, but not unpleasant, and the cloud cover had cleared up enough for them to spot a few stars coming out. They could even spy the half-full moon peeking out. Or was it half-empty? No, she was pretty certain it was half-full. Assuming she was correct about which direction it grew.

Aya glanced towards Chisato, and found Chisato glancing back at her, so their eyes met. She smiled. "So how did you like the first day of camp, Chisato-chan?"

"Honestly? I enjoyed it, Aya-chan. It was more than I had dared hope for. In fact I am so satisfied I almost don't care what happens tomorrow." There was a playful smile on her lips as she said that last part.

"I'm glad." Aya still didn't fully understand Chisato's interest in all this, but she was happy about it. "You even decided to help out Sayo-chan."

"I... yes." Chisato let out a small sigh. "It didn't take very long for me to ignore my vow to remain an observer."

"You're a kind soul, Chisato-chan." Aya had been very happy to see her join in.

"I don't know about that. I just realised that if I truly want these kids to grow, then I might as well aid them a little."

"'These kids'? Are you their grandmother now?"

Chisato chuckled. "I'm old enough to be. And then some." She'd never said her exact age. When asked she'd just replied 'old enough', and told her to stop asking.

Aya giggled. It was nigh-impossible to guess Chisato's true nature by just looking at her, so Aya still felt privileged to know about it. Even if she was no longer the only one.

"You know... I never expected I'd end up this involved with humans. Not that I've ever specifically avoided your kind or anything, but I don't remember the last time I've been pulled in this deep. If ever." Chisato smiled at Aya. "And it's all thanks to you, Aya-chan."

"Chisato-chan..." That almost brought tears to Aya's eyes.

"Or all your fault, depending on how you look at it."

"Wha- Hey!"

Chisato laughed. "Of course there's the rest of Pas*Pal, and Kanon, but I was honestly content to leave it at that, and move on after graduation. Now look at me." Her thumb gently stroked Aya's hand. "It reminds me of how someone once told me I shouldn't deprive myself of the joy of having. Even if I'll lose you eventually, I'm so happy to have you, Aya-chan."

Aya gasped. She felt lost for words.

"Ah, sorry." Chisato quickly apologised. "I guess that's a bit grim."

Aya shook her head while digging a tissue out of her pocket. She needed to wipe her eyes a little. "No. I think it's sweet." It made her feel like she was precious. And was making her blush. "It makes me want to kiss you, to be honest."

"Oh? Then maybe we should find a more private area to sneak off to..."

They got away from the streets and the lights, and locked together somewhere (hopefully) no one would catch them. Aya's lips had grown a little cold, but Chisato's mouth was very hot. Unless there were different types of vampires, the myth about them being cold to the touch was far from the truth.

She soon found herself with her back pushed up against a wall. Even though she was shorter, Chisato tended to be the one taking charge. If she was perfectly honest with herself, Aya felt the urge to get bitten. Maybe wanting to be fed on was weird. But there was something really intimate about it that made Chisato's reaction the first time Aya had asked make more sense. It didn't feel like something you should do unless you were close to someone. And she really wanted to be close to Chisato. She'd make a joke about it being because she was falling under her thrall, but Chisato had gotten quite distressed the last time she had brought that up, so she probably shouldn't say it out loud.

This wasn't really the place for it, though. They had nowhere they could get really intimate out here. At least nowhere pleasant. They didn't have a private room at the ryokan, as they'd gotten two rooms with five people in each. And even if they had, Aya wasn't very good at staying quiet when they got really into it. But maybe she could think of it as giving Chisato a little treat after being so good and helpful at the camp.

"Chisato-chan?"

Chisato stopped assaulting Aya with kisses, and pulled back slightly. Even in the fading daylight there was a glint that made Chisato's eyes easy to see. "Is something wrong, Aya-chan?"

"No, not wrong... just wondered... um... would you like to bite me? Just a little?"

"Huh? Aya-chan..." There was an unspoken 'do you realise where we are' in her voice.

"I-if it's just a little, it should be fine, right?"

Chisato sighed. "Sometimes I almost wish you weren't so tempting... alright, just a little~." She leaned in.

Aya could feel her warm breath on her neck, followed by the fangs sinking in. She couldn't help twitching a little at the sting. Chisato had stopped numbing the area before biting a couple of months ago, and Aya felt like she preferred it that way. Even if she wasn't sure what that said about her.

* * *

Eventually everyone found their way back to the ryokan, and into their futons. They had another day of camp ahead of them the next day, so they shouldn't stay up too late. Plus Sayo would probably scold them if they did.

Aya definitely felt tired, but also restless. She thought about everything that had happened that day, and everything that might be in store for them the next. There was also one other thing that had been in the back of her mind the whole day. Arisa's comment might not have been meant too seriously, but it had still stuck with her.

_~Guardians?~_

_~YES, AYA?~_

No use beating around the bush. They were probably aware of what she wanted to ask anyway.

_~Am I abusing my power?~_

There was a brief pause.

_~YES. YOUR POWER IS NOT MEANT TO BE USED ON SUCH FRIVOLOUS ACTIVITIES. IT IS NOT PART OF YOUR DUTY, AND YOU SHOULD NOT EMPLOY YOUR POWER OUTSIDE OF THAT. NOR IT IS IN SERVICE OF PROTECTING THE PLANET.~_

Aya had suspected as much. No, she had known, but hadn't wanted to confront it.

_~YOU HAVE BREACHED PROTOCOL IN SO MANY WAYS, AYA. YOU REVEALED YOUR EXISTENCE TO OTHER HUMANS. YOU TRAVELLED TO ANOTHER REALITY WHERE WE HAVE NO REACH OR AUTHORITY. YOU USE YOUR POWER FOR YOUR OWN CONVENIENCE. IT IS NOT INFINITE.~_

_~I understand.~_

Maybe she wasn't as good at being a magical girl as she liked to believe after all.

_~GOOD. BUT PLEASE DO NOT WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT IT.~_

_~Huh?~_

_~YOUR POWER MAY NOT BE INFINITE, BUT IT IS RENEWABLE. YOUR KIND HEART IS PART OF THE REASON WE CHOSE YOU, AYA. WE KNOW YOU COULD NEVER IGNORE IT. YOUR HAPPINESS MATTERS TO US. IT IS FINE IF YOU INDULGE A LITTLE. THE IMPORTANT PART IS THAT YOU HAVE NEVER NEGLECTED OR ABANDONED YOUR DUTY. YOUR ACTIONS HAVE NOT ENDANGERED THE PLANET. SO PLEASE DO NOT WORRY SO MUCH.~_

Aya felt a little better. She hadn't thought about it that way.

_~Thank you. Good night, Guardians.~_

_~GOOD NIGHT, AYA.~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist sneaking a bite in there. I'm weak to my own vices.


	10. Day 2: Maya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said in the notes a couple of chapters ago, I want to use day 2 to get some different perspectives. In part because it feels wrong to do this huge fic without giving everyone at least one chapter. With Maya getting hers now, it should only be Misaki (who I'm currently working on, and Tsugumi who haven't gotten one, but there will be a few returning ones too. For instance tomorrow will be Ako again.

It was the start of the second (and final) day, and after a simple breakfast everyone got their butts back to camp. The weather had cleared up a lot, so there was some worry about whether that was bad for Chisato, but she assured everyone she would be fine.

Aside from that there were some obvious differences in who were more morning people than others. Sayo was absolutely fine, Ako looked ready to get back at it, and Tsugumi didn't have any obvious issues either. Misaki and Arisa seemed to be around the same level of coping: Not great, but not bad either. Meanwhile Rinko had to be led by Ako, Moca had a similar arrangement with Tsugumi (who seemed used to it), and even Aya looked a bit rough as she was holding Chisato's hand. She had seemed better the morning before, so maybe she'd had some issues sleeping or something.

Maya wouldn't in all honesty describe herself as a morning person either, but she had gotten used to it. About an hour after waking up she tended to be in decent shape, which meant she was typically okay by the time she got out the door, unless she had overslept.

The first day had been quite exciting. A bit dramatic too, but everyone seemed to have made some progress. Sayo going all out against an unshakeable, immovable Aya had felt like a moment right out of an anime, but she was unlikely to forget the moment Moca dropped any time soon either. The icy stab of panic she had felt. Tsugumi had reacted first, and managed to catch Moca before she hit the floor. Then Maya had dropped the mirror, bolted out the door, and ran full speed to grab Aya. Thankfully it had turned out okay, and Aya had even been able to fix the mirror with her magic.

When they got back after lunch Moca had insisted she wanted to keep going. Saying she had figured it out. She hadn't been able to produce immediate results, but after about an hour she had been able to make changes to her clothing, one item at a time. Maya and Tsugumi had still kept a close eye on her, but she had seemed fine for the rest of the day. Though considering how she had almost melted in the hot spring, maybe she had been more tired than she let on.

At least everyone seemed motivated to get back to it for another day, even the ones who needed a little more time to wake up. It made Maya wish she had an active power of her own to work on. All she could really do to get stronger was work out like a regular person. Only unlike a regular person her gains came much quicker. Seeing what Chisato and Sayo were doing made her wonder if she should attempt to learn a martial art herself. She didn't want to bother Chisato about lessons, she was aware how much her bandmate had on her plate, but not having superhuman strength might work in Maya's favour there. She could attend regular classes without worrying too much. The question was which one to go for. She'd give it some thought.

She wasn't immediately going back to helping Moca practice, though. Misaki had asked for her and Aya's help to make something for Ako. She said she had an idea for another test. So Moca and Tsugumi were on their own for the time being. Maybe Sayo would check in on them. She had seemed a bit pouty the day before after finding out that Tsugumi had been dressing up.

"A puzzle board?"

"Yeah." Misaki nodded. "Well, I don't have a better name for it. See, it was Moca telling me about their time at the festival string booth, where Ako had managed to immediately identify which strings went to which prize, that gave me the idea. So I want to set up something in the same vein as that," she explained.

"Do you mean to build a whole booth, Misaki-san?" Maya asked.

"Uh, no, that would be a bit much. Just the board should be fine. We can just prop it up, or hold it, or something. And I figured that with your prop-making experience you're probably the best choice to help me build it, Maya-san." Misaki pulled out a sketchbook, and laid it on the table in front of them. "Here's the basic design I'm thinking of. The string layout isn't final, but hopefully you get the idea."

Maya rubbed her chin. "Huh. When did you draw this?"

"Last night."

"W-what? But it's so detailed." Aya sounded surprised.

"I've... gotten used to working fast," was the only explanation Misaki gave them. Maya noticed this was about halfway into the sketchbook, and wondered what else was in there. It would probably just be a bother to ask to see it, though.

The board as drawn was a half-oval with 12 lights at the bottom centre, 12 buttons along the rounded part, and a mishmash of strings going between them. The idea was that it would be practically impossible for a regular person to tell which went where, but Misaki's theory was that Ako's eyes would be able to trace the paths much faster. The question was how fast, and whether she would be 100% accurate.

"But... um... what do you need my help for?" Aya asked. "I'm... not the most handy person." She didn't sound happy about admitting it, but she did so all the same.

"Well..." Misaki scratched the back of her head. "Ideally this would be set up with wires and LEDs, but we don't really have the time for that... so I was hoping we could use your magic to cheat. And... we don't have any materials at all... or tools... so... uh..."

"Oh!" Aya perked up.

"I get what you're saying, Misaki-san." Maya also wasn't aware of any sort of workshop room, or even so much as a board they could cut. "I know where to find that stuff, so I could go with Aya-san, and..." It hit her that that meant she'd have to go flying with Aya. She had been nervous enough the first time.

"Maya-chan?" Aya gave her a puzzled look.

"Ah, it's nothing!" Maya said, maybe a little too fast. "If you can take me back home, Aya-san, I know where to find what we need." They'd have to return later that day in the same manner anyway, so she might as well get a couple of practice runs... er, flights in beforehand.

"Okay. Follow me, Maya-chan," Aya said with a smile, and offered her hand.

Maya swallowed nervously before taking Aya's hand. They headed out back to fly off.

"Though as I told Rinko-chan, you might want to close your eyes."

"O-okay." That didn't make Maya any less nervous, but she was quick to do it. She could feel her feet leaving the ground, and then... not much else. There was Aya's hand holding hers, but otherwise she felt nothing in particular. It almost made her want to peek, but she restrained herself.

"We're here. Should I set down at your house?"

"Eh?! Already?! But we just left!"

"I'm very fast." Aya sounded a bit smug about it. "So... your house?"

"Uh, no. There's a theatre I sometimes help out at... um... are we moving?" She realised it would be easier if she pointed it out, but she didn't want to open her eyes if all she was going to see was a blur.

"Not at the moment."

Maya carefully opened her eyes. She was one of the few members of the club who had never asked Sayo to take her flying (even though Sayo hadn't taken anyone but Tsugumi yet, as she said she wasn't ready), but now that she was up there with Aya she had to admit the view was great. And also terrifying because it was a long way down. Normally Maya wouldn't say she had a big problem with heights. She often went up ladders and lifts to help set up stages, had no issues being up on roofs, and had even gone on flights several times. But being high up floating in the air completely exposed made her feel tense. Even though Aya was holding her hand she didn't feel very secure. She trusted Aya enough to go with her, and didn't truly think she was going to fall, but getting her brain to convince her stomach of that was easier said than done.

She looked around for landmarks, and quickly spotted the theatre. "There. You see the large brown building by that park?" She tried to point in the right direction.

It took a moment before Aya answered: "Yes."

"That's it." Sometimes when the weather was nice they would even hold outside performances on a stage in the park. "There's a storage shed out back where leftovers from prop making end up." Some of which got used to make more props, but a lot of it just piled up.

"Can we get in?" Aya posed a reasonable question.

"Yeah, I have a key." Maya had ended up with keys to all sorts of things, and she always carried them with her just in case. People seemed to trust her very easily for some reason. She had two key-rings. One for frequently used keys, and one for everything else.

"Okay, heading over!"

"Ah!" Maya just barely managed to shut her eyes again as the world started moving, though it took mere seconds for her feet to touch ground.

"Is this it?"

Maya dared open her eyes again, and let out a sigh of relief at seeing she was truly, actually on the ground. And right in front of the shed. "Yes. Hang on..." She fished about for her keys. _No, not that one... there!_ With the correct key-ring located, she unlocked the shed, and headed inside. What she found in there could only be described as chaos. "Eeesh." She hadn't been there to help out since their Christmas production due to schedules mismatching, and the others really didn't care as much about keeping things orderly as she did. Maybe on her next day off she should come here just to clean things up. But that wasn't important at the moment. "You... uh... you'd best wait outside, Aya-san. I don't think there's room for more than one person in here."

It didn't take her long to find a board of wood large enough to be suited for Misaki's design. She grabbed a few other bits and bobs that could prove useful as well. And she spotted a spool of thick string, which she decided to show to Aya.

"Do you think you could magic this?" She honestly didn't have the faintest idea how Aya's magic worked. It was too illogical for her brain.

Aya looked at it for few seconds. "Probably yes." That would have to be good enough. "And I was thinking for lights we could just grab some buttons I could transform."

That was probably a good solution if she could really make that work. Next... Maya knew where the theatre's tool rack was, but... "We should probably grab tools from my place." That way she wouldn't have to take them all the way back to the theatre later. "I think we should have a jar of buttons as well." Her mother had sewing equipment, and she thought she had seen something like that.

She made sure to lock back up (and close her eyes) before they stopped by her house, grabbed tools and buttons without getting noticed (she didn't want to explain why she was back early, nor where she was going off to again right away), and then they flew back to camp.

Misaki had set up a work area while they were away, so her and Maya got to work right away. Aya decided she was better off staying out of the way.

"I can tell you're a pro at this, Maya-san," Misaki said.

"Eh? Huhehe, calling me a pro is a bit much, Misaki-san." Maya felt she needed at least a couple more years of experience before she could comfortably say that. Probably more.

"It seems like it to me," Misaki insisted. "It's turning out exactly as I imagined. I only do crafts, so I was unsure how well I could do this. I'm glad I asked for help."

"Well, when it comes to needlework I'm pretty hopeless," Maya admitted. She did not take after her mother in that respect. "I can work on thin wires and such just fine, but for some reason I seem to lose all coordination when it comes to sewing and that stuff."

"Haha, I guess I can help out if you ever need to do anything like that, then." Misaki popped open the jar, and selected 12 buttons. They were putting them in a 4 x 3 grid, and numbering them. "You can really turn these into lights, Aya-senpai?"

"Huh?" Aya looked up from her phone. "Oh. Yeah, should be fine."

"Alright..."

Maya used some sanding paper along the rounded edge while Misaki affixed the buttons with lengths of string attached. It was important it was smooth enough to not give anyone splinters. Maybe it wasn't as important here as it would have been for an actual theatre prop, but she always preferred to be safe. It was basically habit.

Misaki wrote on numbers next to the buttons, and marked 12 spots along the rounded edge. Then she paused for a moment before asking: "Uh... so what do we do for buttons?"

"The jar?"

"No, I mean the buttons she'll press to make the lights turn on."

"Oh!" Maya reached into the satchel she'd thrown a bunch of stuff into. "I brought a bag of basic flip-switches. We can attach the string to them like you would with wires. Assuming Aya-san can make magic go through them as we hope."

"Huh?" Aya looked up again. "Is it my turn?"

"Uh, yes! Actually. If you could come here, Aya-senpai."

"Sure!" Aya seemed eager to get to do something.

Misaki stepped aside to show her the board, and held up the 12 strings. "Could you... uh... scramble these strings?"

Aya stared at her. "Pardon?"

"Well, the idea is that the strings are going to be laid out so it's really hard to tell which goes where," Misaki explained again. "But doing that by hand would take forever. I've attached the strings down here." She pointed towards the line she had drawn on going around the buttons, where she'd used cable clips to hold down the string. "If you could like... scramble the threads from there on, and up to these points." She pointed at the 12 marks she'd made at the edge. "So it's essentially random what goes where. Can you do that?"

"I... can try." Aya didn't seem entirely certain. "And... you want the strings to light up the buttons?"

"Yes." Maya showed her the flip-switches she'd brought. "After they're randomised we'll attach the other ends of the strings to these, so when Ako-san flips a switch, it will make the button that string goes to light up. At least... that's the plan."

"I see..."

"So how about it, Aya-senpai?" Misaki out the threads down.

"Leave it to me!" For some reason Aya suddenly seemed very pumped up. Her rod appeared in her hand, the board got enveloped in a pink glow, and the strings started moving. First they all rose straight up, and then they went into a flurry. Much too fast for the eye to follow. About five seconds later they were laid out in a complete garble across the board, with the ends set against the points Misaki had marked. "How's that?"

"Huh... that's amazing, I can't tell what goes where at all," Maya said. Trying to follow the paths just made her eyes swim. If Ako could figure this out, then it would be pretty impressive.

Aya beamed. "Neither can I!"

"Is that really something you should be proud of, Aya-san...?"

"No matter. It's whether Ako can figure it out that's important," Misaki said, then hesitated for a moment. "Uh... maybe you could attach the switches too, Aya-senpai?"

Maya was about to say she could handle that, but then she saw the problem. Somehow Aya had managed to make it so that each string perfectly ended at the points Misaki had marked. The intention had been for there to be a bit extra sticking up for them to work with when it came to attaching, but that was kinda difficult in the circumstances. It was partly their own fault for not telling Aya that.

"Oh, sure!" Aya just seemed happy to have more to do. After Maya took 12 switches out of the bag, Aya magicked them out of her hand, and soon they were attached to the board too.

Misaki tested it by flipping the left-most switch, which made light number 7 turn on with a bright pink. "Okay." She nodded, and flipped it back off.. "I guess it works. Let's take it out to Ako, though... could you make the light green?"

"Eh? Um... sure."


	11. Day 2: Ako

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt Ako deserved a little more "screen time", so it's back to her for this part! She'll get a few new experiences.

_~Hm... maybe it isn't possible.~_

_Aw. This is still really cool, though! We can have covert communications!_

_~Fufu, thanks.~_

_~Yeah, maybe.~_

_Huh?_

_~Oh, Rinko-senpai said that maybe you also have to learn telepathic speech, and not just think for me to read.~_

_That would be really cool! Do you think we can?_

_~I honestly don't know. Aya-senpai can do it, but she's also magical, so...~_

While Aya, Maya, and Misaki had gone off to prepare something for Ako, she and Rinko had sat down with Arisa to experience her new telepathic speech. Arisa had managed to connect to both of them at the same time while reaching out, so they had been attempting to make a three-way connection where Ako and Rinko could hear each other too. So far they'd had no success.

Moca and Tsugumi had gone inside earlier to keep practising shape-shifting. Sayo had gone with them, saying she wanted to help out, though everyone had a feeling she mainly wanted to see Tsugumi dress up in cute costumes. Ako couldn't blame her, since she liked seeing Rinko in cute outfits too. Chisato had also ended up following along, either because she wanted to see Moca's progress, or because she didn't want to be out in the sun, or maybe a bit of both. Even with whatever mysterious, advanced sunblock she was using, sunlight was probably something she still preferred to avoid if she could help it.

 _~I'd like to think I just need more practice, but... I dunno. I mean, I can't even speak to just one of you at a time. Constantly disconnecting and reconnecting to talk to just one is too much to handle, and I can't seem to just send in one direction when connected to you both. Sorry about that... it'd probably be better to just talk out loud so you can hear each other too.~_ Arisa sounded a bit disappointed.

 _Maybe, but I really like doing it this way, and it would be so cool if we could figure it out, you'd be like a telepathic wifi router letting us hold secret meetings, and it would be so awesome! You're so cool, Arisa!_ Ako assured her.

_~Ehehe, thank you both. I appreciate the support.~_

Something Ako was noticing was that Arisa seemed a bit less... prickly while speaking telepathically. Whether she was aware of that herself was unknown, but maybe it was harder to disguise your feelings when speaking with your mind. She had become more open around the others in general, but she sounded even more friendly and relaxed like this. Maybe she was simply mellowed out by all the praise Ako kept showering on her, but it was really, seriously cool, so she couldn't help gushing.

Plus they were gamer buddies. She imagined using telepathic communication while gaming. Maybe it wasn't actually any better than simple voice chat, but it would be a lot cooler.

_~I'm not sure, but I would guess as far as I can read minds. It seems like I need to focus in on someone to be able to connect to them.~_

_What's that?_

_~Oh, uh, Rinko-senpai asked about range. I've never measured precisely, but I think my mind-reading range is at most 50 metres. Probably a bit shorter. I'd guess speech would be the same.~_

_Oooo, maybe I can run across the field to see if I can still hear you! Also maybe if it's someone you know really well, you'll be able to connect from further away?_

_~Yeah, maybe. I only just figured this out, so I guess there's still a lot of unknowns.~_

_~Oh, Ako-chan asked if maybe I'd be able to connect to someone from further away if I know them really well. If I already know what their mind feels like, maybe... I suppose anything's possible as far as we know right now.~_

Ako felt close to bursting from all the possibilities, even though it wasn't her power. If they could figure out how to connect everyone on the Arisa network, and how to speak to each other through that, it would be the coolest thing! They could still ask Arisa to deliver messages of course, but maybe that would be a bother. Actually, maybe being a router was a bother too.

_Okay, I'll head over to the other end of the field to see if I can still hear you talking!_

But Ako was barely able to get up before the door to the 'workshop' opened.

"Okay, it's ready!" Misaki called out as she and Maya came outside, carrying something between them. "Are you out here, Ako?"

_I'm here!_

_~You need to use your words, Ako-chan.~_ Arisa teasingly reminded her.

Oh right, she needed to speak out loud. "I'm here!" Ako headed closer to them while Arisa and Rinko also got up to see what was happening.

Aya followed after the other two, carrying a table that she set down on the field, before Maya and Misaki put the strange thing they were carrying onto it.

"Does it stand?" Misaki asked.

Maya gave her a thumbs up. "Yup."

"Maybe one of us should stay behind it just in case."

"Hm... probably wise."

"What's this, Misaki?" Ako asked.

"We've made another test for you, Ako," Misaki replied with a hint of pride in her voice.

Ako looked at the thing they had brought out. It looked like a semi-oval shaped board with many buttons, switches, and a whole mess of strings. It took her just a few of seconds to notice the strings connected the switches to the buttons, though for what purpose she had no idea. The whole thing glowed with magic, meaning they'd probably had Aya's help to make it. Then it occurred to her that only the switches around the edge looked like they were actively glowing. The rest of it was a bit dimmer, as if it was fading away.

"What does it do?" she asked.

"The idea is that when you flip one of these switches it will light up the button it's connected to," Misaki said. "I honestly don't know which one connects to which. Aya-senpai jumbled up the string layout too well. But I've labelled all the buttons, so I'll say a number, and you hit the switch you think connects to it. If the right button lights up, then... good job, I guess."

"Ooohhhh! Cool!" Ako got the idea. The strings were certainly very messily laid out, but she thought she had figured out which went where already. Though it would be fun to see if she was right. "Can I have a prize if I get it right?" She was fairly certain she'd get it, and there was something she had wanted to ask since the day before, but hadn't found a good way to do so.

"Uh..." Misaki scratched her head. "What prize?"

"I'll tell you after I win!"

"Huhehe, pretty sure of yourself, huh?" Maya said.

"Yup!" Ako grinned.

"Good luck... Ako-chan," Rinko said from the side.

"Let's see if you can back that up." Misaki stepped to the side, while Maya stayed behind the board. "Which one is number 7?"

Ako took another couple of seconds to look. The string layout was really complex, so she wanted to make sure before she hit the switch. There was a lot on the line, after all. She hit the left-most switch, the string it connected to very briefly lit up with magic, and button number 7 turned a pretty green colour. "Yay! She bounced into the air.

"Huh. Well, what about number 12?" Fourth from the right. "3?" Sixth from the left. "6?" Second from the right. And so on.

Misaki sighed. "Far too easy for you, huh?"

Ako had been correct every time. "Fufu~, never underestimate my dark powers, Misaki," she said proudly. Perhaps she even felt a tad smug. She had nearly knocked over the board once in her eagerness, but Maya had caught it, and set it back up.

"Alright. I guess you've won. Though I have one final test, if you'll indulge me?"

On the one hand Ako was eager to claim her victory, but on the other she was quite curious. "What test?"

Misaki took something out of her hoodie's front pocket.

"A... baseball?"

"Yup," Misaki confirmed. "I found a bucket of them while snooping around yesterday, and went to fetch one while Aya-senpai and Maya-san were gone. Here, catch." She threw it at Maya, who just barely managed to catch it. "Write something on it, please."

"Huh? Write what?" Maya looked confused.

"Anything." Misaki stretched. "Just keep it a secret. Then once you're done, I would like Aya-senpai to throw it really hard. I will try to catch it, so this is sort of a test for myself as well. Ako, you will try to read what Maya-san wrote on the ball as it flies by. Okay?"

"Eh?" Aya also looked confused. "You remember I'm really strong like this, right? If I throw it really hard, I could damage something."

"That's why I'm going to catch it."

"But you could get hurt!"

"Then you'll just have to heal me."

"Misaki-chan-"

"Please, Aya-senpai. It needs to fly faster than a regular human can possibly hope to see. I should be fine. If you won't, then I'll ask Sayo-senpai instead. Or maybe Chisato-senpai is strong enough even though it's daytime."

"Ugh..." Aya didn't look happy. "Okay... I'll do it."

"Here, Aya-san." Maya had already finished writing on the ball, and handed it to Aya, who reluctantly took it.

"Are you up to the challenge, Ako?" Misaki asked.

"You bet!" Ako felt a little worried about Misaki, but also very excited.

They arranged themselves so that Aya and Misaki were on either end of the field, and Ako far enough back that she could see them both. Hopefully at that distance Ako had a chance to actually see the path of the ball.

"Ready, Ako?"

"Ready!"

"Ready, Aya-senpai?"

"Mmph... ready!"

"Okay. Then throw!"

Aya hesitated a couple of seconds, then pulled back, and let it fly. It zoomed across the field so fast Ako could barely keep track of it, and then Misaki moved her hand lightning-fast to catch it.

"Holy hell! I couldn't see it at all!" Arisa apparently couldn't help shouting.

Misaki came walking closer while shaking the hand she had caught the ball with. "Ow..."

Aya came running. "Are you hurt?!"

"No, it just stings a bit," Misaki said. "I wanted to test my reflexes. So, did you catch what it said, Ako?"

It had gone so fast that she almost hadn't, but then it had been as if time had frozen for just a second when the text was visible. "I think it said Tama Superstar."

Misaki looked at the ball. "Huh. You're right. Uh... what's that?"

"A drumkit I've been looking at," Maya answered. "I couldn't fit the whole name, but I figured that would do."

"That was... so cool." Rinko had come up to join them. "You too, Ako-chan."

Ako beamed. "Ehehe~. So, can I have my prize now?"

"I'd say you've earned it, but you haven't said what it is yet."

"Um... well..." Even after all that, Ako felt a bit awkward about asking. "Aya-senpai... would you take me flying? Please?"

"Eh?"

* * *

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!" Ako held on tight to Aya's hand as the landscape blurred past under them. There was so much to see.

"Are you okay, Ako-chan?" Ayo sounded worried.

"I'm great!" Ako's stomach was doing happy flips. "Is this as fast as you can go, Aya-senpai?"

"Just about. Are you sure you're okay? No nausea? Dizziness?"

"Nope! You're doing okay aren't you, Aya-senpai?"

"Yeah, but I'm used to it. Let me know immediately if you start to feel unwell, okay?"

"Okay!" Honestly Ako wanted more. "Can we go higher?" She wondered if she could see all of Japan in one quick swoop.

"Alright." Aya went a little further up.

"Can you make it so we feel the wind too?"

"Absolutely not."

"Aw..."

There was so much going on, and there was absolutely no way her sight could process all of it, but it was such a rush. Occasionally it was like a freeze-frame would happen, showing her something they passed for just long enough to take in the whole scene. Similar to what had happened with the baseball. She didn't know what caused those to happen, but she wondered if it was possible to make them happen by trying to look for specific things. Like, if she wanted to see a dog.

_*FLASH*_

For a second there was a clear view of someone walking their shiba. She felt another rush. Was it just a coincidence, or an important discovery? She tried to think of a cat next.

_*FLASH*_

"Oh! Aya-senpai, stop. Stop!"

"Huh?" Aya slowed down to a halt. "Are you feeling sick?"

"No. There's a cat stuck in a tree."

Aya stared at her, seemingly dumbfounded. "What? A cat?"

"Yeah, back there." Ako pointed back the way they had come. "We need to go help it."

"Huh?"

"Please. Just head back that way, and I'll let you know." Ako gave Aya a pleading look.

"Um, o-okay." The magical girl started flying back, taking it a bit slower.

Ako spotted it again. "There! Down there!" She pointed frantically.

"Where?" Aya slowed down.

"Um..." It occurred to Ako that she probably needed to describe it. "There's a white apartment building by the highway. It's in a tree on the other side of the road from that."

Aya descended. "I... think I see where you mean." Thankfully she was heading in the right direction.

"Hang on, kitty..."

"Ah, I think I see it." Suddenly Aya bee-lined for the tree. In it was a grey and brown cat, probably a couple years old, sitting on a high-up branch, and meowing.

"We need to save it."

"Hopefully we don't just scare it further..."

"Don't worry. Animals like me," Ako said confidently. She'd never had any troubles with cats or dogs. Or anything else, really. Even birds tended to be chill around her.

Indeed the cat was willing to hop onto Ako, and Aya set them down. Ako crouched down so the cat could hop onto the ground, where she started scritching it.

"I'm amazed you could spot that," Aya said.

"I just thought about how I wanted to see a cat, and then I saw this one!" Ako said happily. "I'm glad we could save you, kitty." The kitty was presumably also glad, considering the way it was purring.

"Huh... so you can actually see what we fly past, even at that speed?"

"Some of it, yeah." Ako got back up as the cat walked off. "Be careful about climbing more trees, okay?" she called after it, and got a meow in response.

"Amazing. Well, I guess we got to be heroes." Aya giggled. "Should we head back?"

"Um..." Ako dragged her foot across the ground. There was one more thing she desperately wanted to ask. "Actually... could you take me into space? Please?"

"S-space?" Aya looked shocked for a moment, and then sighed. "You... uh... you didn't forget about that, huh?" She didn't exactly look eager about the idea.

"Please? I'm not smart enough to ever be an astronaut, and there's no way I can afford a civilian flight even if they become a thing in my lifetime, but I've always wanted to go into space, and please please please!" Ako folded her hands together, and literally begged.

"Mm..." Aya's shoulders slumped. "Ugh... fine."

"Yippee!" Ako bounced around. "Thank you thank you thank you I love you Aya-senpai so much you're the best!" She gave her a big hug.

"W-well..." Aya blushed, apparently a little pleased with the praise. The two of them held hands again as they started going directly up. "You know, you're lucky you're so cute, Ako-chan."

"Onee-chan says the same sometimes."

"I bet. But maybe you shouldn't tell Tomoe-chan about going into space."

"Huh? Why not?"

"She might get really worried."

Ako scratched her head. "You think so?"

"She didn't want you to go on the trip, remember?"

"I don't think it'll be a problem... probably..."

"Well, it's up to you." Aya didn't sound convinced.

"Hm... I'll think about it." It didn't feel right to hide something so amazing from her sister, but she also didn't want to worry her. It might be best to talk it over with Moca and Tsugumi to see what they thought.

While she was thinking that over, the sky turned from blue to black around them. Ako blinked for a moment until she remembered what they were doing, and looked down. "WHOA!" The view was literally breathtaking. She had seen pictures, and even footage from orbit, but actually seeing it with her own eyes left her stunned. There it was. Planet Earth. So far below them that she could see most of it all at once. At least the side they were facing.

"What do you think?" Aya asked.

"It's... so pretty." Ako couldn't stop staring. "I wonder if I can see my house from here..." Japan didn't look that big from up where they were, but maybe if she focused she could see all the way...

"Remember what happened yesterday, Ako-chan? Please don't overexert yourself."

The worry in Aya's voice made Ako pause. "Uh... right..." The pain had been pretty bad. Even after Aya's heal it had taken hours for the sensation to fade away completely. It might be for the best to not risk that again. But maybe she could zoom in just a little bit, like try to see if she could at least home in on Tokyo enough to make out the shape of buildings. Or look for big cities in other countries she had never visited.

"I'll give you a small gift though, since this is a special occasion." Aya tapped her magical girl rod on top of Ako's head.

"Huh?" Ako put her hand up there. "What?"

"I've made it so you can fly around on your own for a little bit." Aya smiled.

Ako stared at her in utter astonishment. "Really?"

"Yup. You can't go very fast, but why not let go of my hand, and try it out? I'll stay close."

Maybe it was because her excitement overrode her common sense, but Ako let go. She was floating fine, but wasn't sure how to actually fly.

"Just think about which way you want to go," Aya said, as if she had read Ako's mind. Or at least guessed at what she was thinking.

Ako looked away from Aya. _That way._ And she started actually moving. "Whoa!" And slowly spinning around. "W-whoa!" She had no idea how stop herself, and kept turning. "Whoa whoa whoa!" The moon came into view as she was forced to look away from the planet surface. It looked bigger than she was used to. Which made sense.

Thankfully Aya grabbed her, and steadied her again. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I just... that's harder than it looks." Ako felt a new appreciation for Aya and Sayo's flying skills.

Aya giggled. "Ready to go back? The others might get worried if we stay away any longer."

"Just a few more minutes? I wanna try to figure this out!"

"Alright. Five minutes. But that's it."

"Thank you!" Ako was going to do her very best to master her new (and unfortunately temporary) power of flight. Maybe it would have been easier with more gravity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I setting up too much I won't be able to follow up on? Probably.  
> Now... unfortunately I only have one more chapter ready to post. So after tomorrow I might not be able to keep up the daily schedule any longer. I have three more chapters to write, and if I'm lucky I'll be able to do one per day to actually stay on schedule, but... I can't promise that. But I'm fairly certain I'll be able to finish before the end of the week. So much for giving myself a sizeable buffer. I was way too good at getting distracted this week.


	12. Day 2: Misaki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for Misaki to show her stuff. Maybe more so than she intended.

While Ako went off with Aya, Maya and Misaki went about cleaning up, and putting everything back in place. Ako had wanted Aya to go at full speed, and Misaki couldn't imagine asking for the same. Everything Aya could do was amazing, and she admired it, but that didn't mean she necessarily wanted to experience it. Maybe it was silly for someone who could climb up walls to feel uncomfortable with heights in any way, but it wasn't something she could do anything about. Plus there was a difference between being in a thing made to fly, and just floating in the air completely exposed. The speed unsettled her as well. Though between being in the club, and everything Kokoro put them through, she might be forced to get used to it sooner or later. At least she was nowhere near as bad as poor Kaoru. If Kaoru was to go flying with Aya she'd probably faint.

Once they were done, Maya said she was going to check on Moca's progress. Misaki replied she had something to do instead of coming along. Arisa and Rinko were gone too. Maybe they had gone to work on their own powers while Maya and Misaki were cleaning up their makeshift workshop. Those two seemed to be getting along quite well. As far as she knew, they played the same online game along with Ako. Misaki wasn't into online games, but she had a gaming console. While she used to play on it more often, it was mostly to play with her siblings these days.

She headed to the room where she had found the bucket of baseballs, and grabbed the whole thing. Catching the baseball Aya had thrown had definitely stung. To be honest she had acted more confident about her chances than she had actually been, but since she had succeeded she was curious to see if she could do it more. Since Aya had left, she'd have to ask Sayo or Chisato. They might be better options anyway, as they probably couldn't throw as hard. She was certain Aya had held back, but even so... _Ow._

Her inhuman reflexes were really the only thing she could think to train. Maybe learning to fight like Sayo wished to wasn't a bad idea, but it didn't hold the same appeal to Misaki. She certainly had no desire to use Aya as a punching bag the way Sayo had done. That had been scary to watch. Also there was nothing special to climb out here except trees, so she might as well practice hanging from the ceiling in her room. Her parents were used to it. And how exactly was she supposed to test her jumping? Try to leap over tree tops?

However the way she could sense things coming at her might be worth testing out a bit more. So she needed someone who could throw things at her quite fast. One of those tennisball launching machines might not have been the worst idea, but those were made to be within the range of human possibility. Misaki was curious to find out how well she'd do beyond that.

Would it actually improve anything? Possibly not. It might only satisfy her own curiosity. She had considered grabbing a bat, but if she started hitting the balls into the woods they might never find them again. It was also uncertain exactly what would happen if she hit the building. Windows would shatter for sure, but since it was a traditional style building the walls weren't that thick either. So she'd settle for just catching for now.

She peeked inside where Maya had gone, though the only ones present were Maya, Moca, and Tsugumi. Tsugumi was for some reason wearing a military uniform that looked a little too big on her, and Moca had a matching jacket on instead of her hoodie. Was that where they were at with her shifting? Misaki was looking forward to everyone showing off their achievements later.

"Uh... where did Chisato-senpai and Sayo-senpai go?" she asked.

She was informed that Chisato and Sayo had gone to a different room two doors over a little while ago. Apparently the sunny weather had made them decide to train inside instead of out. Though they had stayed around to help out for a little while. Possibly because Sayo wanted to watch Tsugumi in costume.

So Misaki lugged her bucket of balls further down the hall past one door, and onto the next. She slid the door open, and saw Sayo beating on a training dummy while Chisato was overseeing. The amount of noise they were making was probably why they'd moved two rooms instead of one. It had to be a new training dummy as well, as Misaki was certain she had seen the other one still outside. Plus this one looked less beaten up.

"Chisato-senpai? Sayo-senpai?" she called out to them.

Chisato turned to look at her, and Sayo stepped away from the dummy.

"Is something the matter, Misaki-chan?" Chisato asked.

"Not as such," Misaki said. "I was just wondering if you could help me with something."

"Does it have something to do with that bucket?" Sayo asked while flexing her fingers.

"Yeah." Misaki started explaining what they had done for Ako, how she wanted to test her superhuman reflexes, and wondered if one of them could help her with it.

"Hm... why not ask Aya-chan to keep throwing at you?"

"She went off with Ako for the time being, and I don't know when they'll be back. Also... Aya-senpai is scary strong. It really hurt to catch the ball she threw," Misaki admitted.

"Aya-chan can control her strength quite well," Chisato assured her.

"Sure, but..." Even after all these months it was hard to shake the image of the regular Aya she knew from school, and from watching Pastel*Palettes. The memory of how she had taken out that monster in a single hit was seared into her brain. One slip-up, and Misaki would be paste. Even if that was highly unlikely to happen, she couldn't let go of the worry. "You two are slightly less scary strong, so I'd prefer if one of you could help me out instead. I mean... unless it really ruins your schedule..."

"I wouldn't mind doing some different movements for a while," Sayo said. "Do you object, Shirasagi-san?"

"It's your training, Sayo-chan. You can do as you wish." Chisato smiled. "I would honestly be interested in watching this. I wonder how the two of you compare in strength."

"I... don't think I compare to Sayo-senpai at all," Misaki said. She technically had superhuman strength like Sayo, but after yesterday's demonstration she felt way out of her league. Sayo was an entirely different class. No matter how much she trained there seemed to be a difference of scale in what they had been given that might be impossible to overcome. Or maybe she was just being too negative. She had misjudged her strength, and broken things at times, but she had never gone all out as far as she could remember. She might have swung with all her might when those beasts attacked them, but that had been a life and death scenario, and she had absolutely zero idea how that sort of impact compared to anything from the real world. But her gut feeling, her instinct, was that she fell short of Sayo's full power. "We should probably do this outside though... will you be okay, Chisato-senpai?"

"I assure you there is no problem with my sunblock," Chisato said. "Though I will probably stay in the shade, and watch you from there." The roof extended enough that it provided some shade on the wooden platform running along the side of the building. With the sun in its current position, there should be ample space for her to sit.

They set themselves up with Sayo by the bucket, and Misaki standing about 15 metres away. That was perhaps a bit far, but she wanted to get some practice throws in before potentially moving closer. They had to figure out what was the best speed to throw at, and what was the best distance to give Misaki time to react, but not too much time. In theory Sayo could probably throw hard enough to compensate for any distance across the field, but Misaki would prefer if it didn't hurt to catch every ball. Once was enough.

Misaki flexed her fingers. "Ready!" Chisato had suggested getting a catching glove, since there should be at least one in the same place Misaki had found the balls and bats, but she decided to pass since it might interfere with her movement. The idea of vampires playing baseball was an odd one, but they seemed to have all the equipment for it here. Other sports too. Having something to play together was probably fun, but she started imagining a vampire baseball league. Maybe she should focus on catching instead.

The first ball Sayo threw didn't seem to be much harder than what a normal human could throw. Misaki probably didn't need her improved reflexes to catch that one. It just smacked softly into her palm.

"What was that, Sayo-senpai?" she had to ask.

"Just a practice throw," Sayo replied. "I wanted to make sure I'm aiming right."

"Aren't you an archer?" Misaki had assumed that would be second nature to her.

"Aiming a bow, and aiming a throw are different things, Okusawa-san. The next one is coming at you faster, so I hope you're ready."

Misaki watched Sayo wind up, and suddenly the ball was in her hand. She hissed.

"How was that?" Sayo asked.

"Ow... a bit too hard..." It wasn't quite as bad as the one Aya had thrown, but it was close. Maybe she shouldn't have said anything about the first throw.

"Nice catch, Misaki-chan!" Chisato called from the sideline.

"Thanks!" Misaki dropped the ball, and rubbed her hand.

"Okay, I'll rein it in a little," Sayo said as she picked up another ball.

The next one she caught still had a noticeable thud to it, but no particular sting.

"Another couple like that, please."

One more catch, and then another.

"Okay, that feels good. Now I'll gradually move closer."

"Understood."

Misaki took a couple of long steps closer after each throw. When she was getting close to 10 metres away, she thought she had found a good position. She asked Sayo to stop for the moment, made a mark in the ground to remember her position, and collected all the balls she had caught so far to put them back in the bucket. Then she got back on the mark.

"Ready."

Sayo nodded, then began throwing balls at Misaki, who caught them without fail. It was kinda fun to prove that she could do it repeatedly, but it felt more like playing than training.

"Um, Sayo-senpai? Do you think you could throw them at a quicker pace?" If there was less interval between each throw, it could pose a challenge.

Sayo paused. "I don't think I can reach into the bucket any faster than I already am. I could try to hold several balls at once."

"I don't think that's necessary, Sayo-chan."

They both turned their heads to see Chisato approaching them.

"I've gotten some ideas from watching you. If you could wait here a moment, Misaki-chan, and you could come with me, Sayo-chan."

"Um... sure."

Chisato led Sayo into one of the rooms, and shortly after they came out with a table. Misaki watched them mystified as they adjusted the height, but she got it once Sayo lifted the bucket onto the table.

"Oh, now you can reach it easy!" Misaki said.

"Yes, this should do nicely. I'll pick up the pace then, Okusawa-san." Sayo had a slight smile on her face, as if she was looking forward to it.

With the table set up like that, Misaki started to feel like a target at a fun-fair.

"One more thing," Chisato said. "I would suggest you throw at slightly different angles, Sayo-chan. Aim for different parts of Misaki-chan's body, or maybe just to the side of her."

"Huh?" Misaki blinked.

"You don't mind getting a bit more of a work-out do you, Misaki-chan?" Chisato smiled sweetly at her, though it almost felt a little sinister.

"Uh... I mean..." It was what Misaki had intended, but she was getting a bad feeling about this.

"Understood. Prepare yourself, Okusawa-san," Sayo said.

"H-hang-" Misaki wasn't able to finish that sentence before the first ball came at her. Then another that she caught with her other hand. She had little choice but to drop them, and focus. While they were coming in at different angles, her reflexes were able to keep up. Though having to move more was starting to make her sweaty. Eventually they ran out of balls, and Misaki was able to breathe again.

"Whoooaaaa~!"

She recognised that voice.

"That was so cool, Misaki!" Ako bounced closer. "I could never move that fast!"

"Wh..." Misaki took another deep breath. "When did you come back?"

"About a minute ago," Aya said. "Sorry for not saying anything, but we didn't want to interrupt."

"Hey, do it again!" Ako grinned.

"Uh..."

"A good idea, Ako-san," Sayo said. "Let's gather the balls back into the bucket."

"Huh?!" Misaki stared at her. "We're not done?"

"You want to really test yourself, don't you?"

"Um..." That had been the idea, but surely they'd done enough.

Ako was already eagerly piling the balls back into the bucket. "I can't wait!"

Misaki let out a deep sigh. "I guess the matter's already settled..." _I guess I kinda asked for this._ She had been the one to ask Sayo to pick up the pace. _I really need to learn to be more careful with what I say._

"What's going on?" That was Arisa. Both her and Rinko had shown up. "Chisato-senpai said there's something we have to see."

"Misaki's doing a speed test!" Ako declared.

"A what?"

"Are you ready, Okusawa-san?" Sayo asked.

There was no way out of it at that point. _This is just like when I'm with Hello Happy_... "Yeah, ready," she said in a resigned voice.

And so began another round. If it wasn't for her sticky hands, the amount of sweat might have made her grip less reliable. It felt like the balls were coming in even quicker than before. At first she thought it was her imagination, or the tiredness getting to her, but then she noticed what Sayo was doing. With her left hand she threw a ball from the bucket into the air, and caught it with her right which immediately threw it. It was like some bizarre juggling act. The increased pace did mean they went through all the balls quicker, but it had been more intense.

"Oh thank god..." Misaki said when she dropped the final ball. She just wanted to sit down. Or lay down.

"Amazing!" Ako seemed absolutely ecstatic, and the others were clapping.

"Very impressive, Misaki-chin~." Apparently Moca had also shown up at some point. Maya and Tsugumi was there too.

So that meant everyone was watching her? Her embarrassment level started rising. _I wish I could hide inside Michelle right now._ She was extremely bad at being on stage outside of Michelle. And being the centre of attention like this was almost as bad as holding a concert.

"At least it's over now..."

"Here, Misaki-san." Maya handed her a water bottle, and Misaki downed nearly the whole thing in one go.

"Time for the next round, Misaki-chan!"

"Huh?" Misaki looked up to see Chisato walking up. Carrying a bucket. "Oh no..."

"Chisato-chan?" Aya gave Chisato a puzzled look.

The vampire just put the bucket on the table next to the other one. "I'm joining in this time."

"What?"

"Misaki-chan has two hands, after all. Now, these are tennis balls, so they should be a bit easier, and I'm not quite as fast or strong as Sayo-chan. So I highly doubt we'll be in sync, but that should just make it more interesting, yes?"

"No," said Misaki.

"Yes!" said Ako.

"Good luck, Misaki," said Arisa.

"You can do it, Misaki-chin~," said Moca.

_I don't get a say in this, do I?_

"Um... I'll give you a little recovery boost," Aya said, and tapped Misaki on the shoulder. She started feeling better immediately, but the tiredness didn't entirely go away. "Do your best."

_I would have preferred if you had saved me from this, Aya-senpai._

"Ready, Sayo-chan?"

"Ready."

"I hope you're ready too, Misaki-chan." Chisato definitely seemed like she was enjoying this too much.

For a moment Misaki entertained the idea of simply running away. Outside of Aya she didn't think anyone would be able to catch her, and Aya was too nice to hunt her down. If she got into the forest, Sayo wouldn't be able to keep up. She would be lost in the woods in an area she didn't know, but at least she wouldn't have to do this. Maybe she'd get adopted by a real bear. But it was already too late, as the balls came flying at her.

She had to focus as hard as she could to catch them, both arms moving as quickly as possible. But the uneven tempo, the different speeds, and fatigue setting in meant that eventually some balls started going past her. She managed to avoid getting hit, but she couldn't catch them all. She couldn't say for sure how many slipped past, as she had more important things to do than count, but finally there came a point where no more came flying at her. For a moment she managed to hold her position, but once she started hearing applause, she dropped to her knees.

"Mercy... please... have mercy..."

"Misaki-chan?"

She felt a hand on her back, and looked up to see Aya.

"A-are you okay? Do you want me to heal you?"

Misaki almost said yes, but then reconsidered. "Will... will you make me do more?"

Aya shook her head. "No. Right, Chisato-chan? No more."

"Yes, I believe that's fine," Chisato said. "Well done, Misaki-chan."

"Okay... thank you, okay... please, Aya-senpai." It probably sounded like Misaki was begging, but she didn't really care about pride at the moment.

"Got it."

A pink glow surrounded Misaki, and took away the worst of the fatigue. She might not be that sore or achy any longer, but she still wanted to lay down on her back for a while. Though when she was offered a hand to help her get back up, she took it.

"That was so cool, Misaki!" At least Ako was still full of energy. "I've never seen anyone move that fast. Like... uh... the speed of dark!"

"Don't you meant the speed of light, Ako-chan?" Tsugumi asked.

"Nuh-uh, dark moves faster than light!" Ako insisted.

Misaki wasn't sure if that was correct, but she cheered up a little at how Ako reminded her a bit of her own little sister. Her little siblings might not be quite so bouncy, but they adored her, and she adored them in return. It almost made her wish they had gotten to see this.

"Here, Misaki-san. Well done." Maya handed her a towel, which she gratefully accepted.

"So... uh... congrats?" Arisa had come to join the crowd.

"Thanks," Misaki finally managed to draw a deep breath. "I didn't catch all of them, though..."

"Eh, you only missed a couple," Arisa said with a shrug.

Moca raised her hand. "I volunteer to _not_ be the one to pick those up~."

"Moca-chan!"

"I'll do it," Aya said. "Can you help me find them, Ako-chan?"

"Yes!"

"Very impressive, Okusawa-san," Sayo said while Aya and Ako headed towards the edge of the field.

"Thanks, but I'm not doing that again," Misaki said as firmly as she could manage.

"Oh? And here I was going to schedule the next time. Maybe after lunch?" Sayo and Misaki stared at each other for a long moment. "That was a joke, Okusawa-san."

Misaki sighed. She hadn't been able to tell at all. _I should remember to never play poker with Sayo-senpai._

Everyone agreed it was a good time to take a break for lunch, though. And give Misaki the chance to shower, and get changed. What she actually wanted was to soak in the hot spring again, but she would accept a shower as the second best option. The worst part was that she had basically gotten exactly what she had wished for. She had seen how well she'd do if pushed beyond human limits. And she had pushed them to push her, it had simply gotten out of hand. So maybe she should be grateful, but it felt more like somewhere a monkey's paw had curled its finger for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we have hit the point I had hoped to avoid. Maybe it was folly of me to think I could finish this before I ran out of chapters to post. In the 10 days since I started I managed to finish three chapters, I believe. Fairly certain I had all of day 1 done when I decided to post chapter 1. Then I did day 2 Maya, Ako, and Misaki in the time since then. Touching up each chapter before posting them did take an hour or two each day, but even so I feel like I should have been able to do more.  
> So from here on out the chapters will be going up when they're done. The plan is for three more, and assuming I don't get distracted too badly, I hope to be done before the end of the week. Sorry I couldn't keep up the daily releases all the way to the end.


	13. Day 2: Chisato

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to give the vampire a bit more time, so I could add more lore. >,.,>

Chisato decided to treat Misaki to whatever she wanted at lunch. Thankfully it wasn't too hard to convince her. The vampire was willing to admit (in private) that she had gone a bit far, so Misaki could consider it either a reward, or an apology, or both. It had been a lot of fun, and she hoped Misaki would look back on it positively as well. Once the trauma had passed. The girl looked a lot better after she had finished her shower, and Ako was doing her best to cheer her up with her usual enthusiastic gushing. She had done really well, and honestly surpassed expectations. Chisato had thought she would mess up much more than she did. So she had earned some praise.

There was a reason for Chisato's odd behaviour. Getting to drink Aya's blood the night before, even though it had only been a little bit, had really energised her. So even with the sun out that day, she honestly felt perkier than she had the day before, and it made her feel a little more aggressive as well. She wasn't going to claim it was a good reason, since she really should be able to exercise more self-control than that at her age, but it was the reason. Hopefully she'd be able to restrain herself from pulling any more stunts.

Next up Ako excitedly told them all about her trip into space with Aya. There was a mix of reactions in the group. Most were amazed to some extent, some looked a little pale at the idea, and there was probably some admiration of how bold Ako had been to ask in the first place. Chisato also detected some looks of envy. _Is Aya-chan aware of the precedent she's set?_ If she was perfectly honest, she felt a little stab of envy herself. Maybe jealousy too. She had been aware that Aya could go into space, since she had heard the story of the 'final battle', but it hadn't occurred to her to actually ask to be taken there. So it was really her own fault that Aya had taken Ako first, but she still felt a little bothered.

"And and and space is SO big, and Earth is SO small!" Ako waved her hands as if to illustrate in some fashion.

"We didn't go that far up, Ako-chan," Aya said in a slightly embarrassed tone.

"Yeah we did! I... um um... I got to see the infinite power of darkness!" Ako was really fired up.

"That's really cool... Ako-chan." Rinko smiled at her.

With lunch wrapped up, they headed back to camp. Chisato didn't think there was anything special planned. Everyone was probably just going to keep at it. They were wrapping up a little earlier than the day before, so that everyone got the chance to show off what they had accomplished at camp before it got dark. It was voluntary, but she suspected that no one who'd had a breakthrough wanted to be left out. She was looking forward to that, but otherwise she'd probably just keep coaching Sayo. They were still just focusing on the basics, and Sayo would probably have to keep doing that for a while. Not exciting, just necessary.

Upon arrival everyone split up again. Misaki vowed to not do anything strenuous for the rest of the day, which was fair. Maya volunteered to take over the task of checking in on everyone to see if they were okay, so Misaki was free to chill. She ended up going with Arisa, who wanted Aya's help to perform an experiment. Ako and Rinko said they were going to keep working on Rinko's teleportation. Rinko had seemed a bit tired at lunch, so hopefully they wouldn't overdo it. Moca still seemed eager to keep going, which anyone who knew her might be surprised by. Maybe 'eager' wasn't a word you would apply to Moca except in the presence of bread, but saying she wanted to train more was probably as close as she'd get. And Tsugumi still wanted to keep an eye on her. So it seemed like everyone's roles from day 1 were more or less the same.

Chisato kept monitoring Sayo's training. Maybe it was just her imagination, or simple wishful thinking, but she thought Sayo seemed less wary of her now. Even if it had only been a day, maybe spending time together like this had built up a little bit of trust. It was a nice thought, if nothing else.

As for the training, she couldn't help thinking that it might have been helpful to have a more advanced training dummy. Maybe one with arms, and that could rotate. This one was reinforced, but otherwise had nothing special to it. This was more of a leisure facility than anything else, so it hadn't been deemed necessary to have any advanced equipment. And she would probably never be allowed to take humans to a proper training facility. Even if they were extraordinary. Or maybe especially because they were extraordinary. Just as there were always humans worried about vampires, there were always vampires worried about humans, and such places were heavily regulated.

"You're improving, Sayo-chan." Her strikes were more precise, and her movements less wasteful. Not by a huge amount, but enough that Chisato could tell. Some of that probably came from an increase in confidence more than an increase in skill, but that was precisely why it was important to keep her motivated. Adversity could certainly foster growth, but for the moment she would rather encourage Sayo to not hesitate. If that stopped producing results, then she'd consider alternate methods.

"I still have a long way to go," Sayo said.

"Yes." No need to sugarcoat that. She had a feeling Sayo preferred honesty, so she would only give honest praise. "But I can tell you've got the idea. You simply need more practice."

"Will you keep helping me out, Shirasagi-san?"

Chisato had known the question was coming. And she only had herself to blame. "You know how busy I am, Sayo-chan."

"I see..."

"But I also hate starting things I don't finish." Chisato suppressed a sigh. "I can't promise you regular coaching, but I can give you occasional lessons when I'm free. Outside of that you'll have to keep up with self-study. That is the best I can offer." Part of her wished she could at least offer one lesson per week, but she knew it would be foolhardy to promise even that much.

"Understood." Sayo threw another couple of punches before saying: "I accept."

"I still think a regular martial arts class would be beneficial to you." There was no rule that said anyone had to study only one. "Being able to train alongside, and spar with someone at your own skill level would help. I understand you're worried about your strength, but such things can be controlled."

"I'm used to practising on my own."

"I don't doubt it." Though there was some difference between martial arts and guitars. "If only Misaki-chan would join us." Training both of them at once wouldn't be much harder than training just one, and Misaki's strength and reflexes meant Sayo wouldn't have to worry so much about hurting her.

"I think we might have already done enough to her."

"Hah, you may be right."

Sayo might come across as pragmatic, and sometimes harsh, but her care for the others' well-being seemed entirely genuine.

Chisato kept watching over Sayo for a bit longer, providing occasional input, but there wasn't as much for her to point out any longer for this stage of training. When they were ready to move on to the next level things would change, but that wouldn't happen that day.

Normally she'd have more patience to stick around regardless, but the blood boost was still keenly felt, and it made her restless. It made her want to do something with that excess energy. It had been a while since she'd had someone she actually wanted to feed on who was also willing to give up their blood, and she hadn't fully readjusted to that yet. The vow she had taken to not feed again since they had developed alternate methods hadn't lasted long. Curse that delicious magical girl. At least when she was at work she was kept busy, and could even channel that energy in productive ways.

She had an idea.

"Sayo-chan, would you mind if I stepped away for a bit? I have a couple of things I'd like to attend to."

Sayo looked at her for a moment. "I don't mind. Will you be back?"

"Yes." Chisato nodded. "I shouldn't be too long, though you're free to do as you wish while I'm gone." _Or even when I'm not gone._ If Sayo wanted to stop training for the remainder of the camp, Chisato wouldn't object. "Perhaps check in on your cute girlfriend?" she suggested with a wink, which actually caused a slight blush. _Ah, youth._ Though she probably wasn't acting any less love-struck herself those days.

She headed outside to look for the others, and found one of them almost immediately. _Speaking of cute girlfriends._ Aya was sitting on a part of the wooden platform where the sun had encroached. Even when she knew she was safe, Chisato had a natural aversion to sunlight. That would probably never go away, even if they somehow came up with a permanent cure for it. Certain things just sat deep in your nature. Though maybe it wasn't that deep when she knew that if the thin (though durable) screen that protected her failed, she was completely vulnerable again. If even just part of it was removed or ruined, she'd suddenly have a huge weakness. She envied humans in that respect. If being weaker during the day was all she had to worry about, it wouldn't be so bad.

"What are you doing, Aya-chan?" she asked while walking closer.

"Hm? Oh, Chisato-chan. Just getting some sun. It helps me recharge my power." Aya smiled.

Chisato chuckled. "Are you Superman now?"

"You know who Superman is, Chisato-chan?"

"Why wouldn't I know who Superman is? He's a prominent enough cultural figure that it's hard not to." Plus she read superhero comics. Not as much any longer, but she used to be big into them. Whether that was the reason she was interested in real-life super-powered humans, or whether she had read them because she already had an interest she wasn't entirely sure of. But everyone needed a hobby.

"Good point." Aya giggled. "But wouldn't I be Superwoman?"

"More like Supergirl."

"Hey!" Aya's pout was so cute. Honestly she could probably beat Superman, since he had a weakness to magic, but Chisato wasn't sure how well known that bit of lore was, so she refrained from bringing it up. No reason to casually give away the depth of her geekiness.

"I thought you were helping Arisa-chan?" she asked instead.

"We got done pretty quickly. She went with Misaki-chan to join Ako-chan and Rinko-chan. I believe they all wanted to practice together." Aya stretched. "I wonder how Rinko-chan is doing. I haven't checked in on her since yesterday."

"What did Arisa-chan want help with?"

"Mm... she said she wanted to talk about it at the wrap-up later, so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say..."

"That's fair." Chisato nodded slightly. "I'll look forward to it."

Aya yawned. "Anyway, I figured I'd rest a little. Between your bite, and not sleeping that well, I feel a little tired."

Chisato shook her head. "Did you sleep poorly because I bit you?" She teased, as she knew that it tended to excite Aya, which was honestly part of the fun.

Aya blushed. "Uh, no... just had some stuff on my mind." It didn't sound like she was lying.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

"No, that's okay."

"Hm..." At a guess Chisato would say it wasn't worth trying to push the issue. "I'm going to check in on Arisa-chan and the others, then. Though I'd like your help with something afterwards."

"Hm? With what?"

Chisato smiled. "I'll tell you later."

"Hmmmm..." Aya gave her a curious look. "Okay, sure."

Taking the chance that no one was watching, Chisato bent down to give the tired Aya a quick kiss on the cheek before heading over to the room Rinko and the others were using. She gave a brief knock before sliding the door open.

Everyone turned to look at her. They were sitting around a table, so maybe they were taking a break.

"Oh, Chisato-senpai," Misaki said.

"Hello, girls. I was wondering if Arisa-chan could help me test something," Chisato told them.

"Huh, me?" Arisa looked surprised, and Chisato nodded at her. "Um... sure." She got up from her seat, and they went to the next room over. "W-what do you want to test, Chisato-senpai?"

"No need to be so nervous, Arisa-chan." Chisato tried to smile in a relaxing manner. "You managed to communicate telepathically with Aya-chan, right?"

"Right."

Based on Arisa's own descriptions, Chisato's understanding was that Aya had some really solid mental defences. The part of her mind that contained any compromising information appeared to simply not be there, while her harmless thoughts were still open to read. Chisato had her own defences against mental intrusions, though they worked a little differently. She closed her mind entirely, and added a hint of suggestion that she not be noticed at all. Normally such a gap would be obvious to any trained telepath paying attention, so anything to make it harder to arouse suspicion was crucial.

"So I was wondering if we could attempt to communicate as well?" Chisato was not a telepath, she merely knew how to defend against them. And how to respond if contacted by someone she trusted. She just couldn't establish connections herself. There was no chance of her lowering her defences, as the risk was simply too great. Especially any chance of letting a human see anything, no matter how much she trusted them. But a few vampire telepaths she trusted could still connect with her for communication only, so in theory the same should be possible with Arisa.

Arisa seemed less certain. "The thing is... I can't sense your mind at all, Chisato-senpai. To be honest it's really weird, but I've gotten mostly used to it. With Aya-senpai I could at least sense part of her mind to focus in on. Between us I'm not sure what to focus on."

That was a fair point, and somewhere Chisato's own knowledge fell short. "Can you attempt to focus on my absence?"

Arisa frowned slightly. "You blend into the background so well I'm not sure... that thing you said about suggestion probably hides my ability to notice where you're supposed to be."

"I see..." Chisato had taken the lessons of how to implement the defences to heart, and could do that nigh-perfectly. But exactly how it worked she might not have paid as close attention to. So she couldn't deconstruct it to the sense of only disabling part of it, even if removing just the suggestive part might be enough for Arisa to find her. "So it doesn't help that you can see me?" Surely her mind and her body were in the same place.

"Mm... it might." Arisa didn't sound sure. "It's hard to explain the different ways I see things... but I suppose we can try."

They sat down, and Arisa started focusing. Chisato could feel her probing. It definitely felt a bit different from when Arisa was just passively reading minds without meaning to. So this was what Arisa's searching felt like. But without any telepathic ability of her own, Chisato didn't know how to meet her halfway. If she could figure out how to respond to those probes, the problem would be solved. She tried concentrating. Imagining the probing as a thread, or a hand, she could reach out and grab onto, but while they were close, the probes weren't directed right at her. Probably thanks to the suggestion. And without any real knowledge of the methodology behind it, she had no idea how to compensate.

They kept trying, but it didn't seem like they were making any progress. It might be matter of inexperience, but Chisato figured that Arisa was probably doing what she was supposed to. It was likely her own efforts that got in the way. Maybe she should contact one of her telepathic friends to ask for help, but if they found out she was trying to make contact with a human that would probably be an issue. There was a chance they simply wouldn't ask questions about who she was trying to contact, but if they did the community of vampire telepaths was small enough that everyone was aware of everyone else, unless they had developed the gift so recently they hadn't revealed it yet. And if that was their assumption, then they'd absolutely ask for an introduction.

"I'm sorry, Chisato-senpai. I can't make it work," Arisa said.

"That's okay, Arisa-chan. I suspect the issue is on my end." And Chisato wasn't sure how to fix it, or if she even could. It might be a compatibility issue between species, but surely vampires communicating with human telepaths wasn't unprecedented. Maybe she could consult her mother, since she was aware of the club. "I'll give the matter some thought. Thank you for trying."

She walked with Arisa back to the others, and conveniently found Aya inside there with them.

"Ah, Aya-chan, perfect. Are you able to help me out now?" Chisato asked.

"Sure, Chisato-chan."

The two of them went back to the room where Chisato had been with Arisa, where Chisato took a bottle out out of her handbag, and handed it to Aya.

"Hm? What's this?" Aya examined the unlabelled, white plastic bottle.

"It's some of the sunblock I use to survive being outside during the day." Marvellous stuff, really. It didn't alleviate other day symptoms like reduced strength, or the urge to go to sleep, but practice helped you deal with it well enough that most humans wouldn't notice. While you absolutely had to be thorough with applying it, it had a slight bit of leeway in stretching its effect enough to cover small spots you might have missed, and also protect places you couldn't directly apply it, like your eyes, or inside your mouth. Just don't stare at the sun slack-jawed, and you should be fine. Though that was something humans shouldn't do either. And thankfully it wouldn't come off by something as simple as scratching at it, or being exposed to water. To remove it you needed to use a special counter-formula, or wait for it to wear off. It was a pain, and a lot of vampires still preferred to just avoid daytime, or use more traditional measures if they had to briefly go outside, but for some it was a necessity. For Chisato it had become habit. Routine.

"So you need help to reapply it?" Aya asked.

Chisato hadn't really explained it in detail to Aya, so it made sense she'd be a little confused. "Something like that." Chisato deployed her wings. She had been itching to do so ever since the night before, and the sensation was euphoric. "Ah~." She sighed contently.

"Ch-Chisato-chan?" Aya stared at her.

"Could you help me apply sunblock to my wings, Aya-chan?"

"Huh? Um... sure." Aya opened the bottle. "You didn't do so already?"

A fair question. "No," was her simple answer. Chisato had deliberately not explained to anyone, not even Aya, how hiding her wings worked. It was a vampire secret. For all intents and purposes they were actually gone. Hidden away safely. No vampire, even those who went outside daily, would think of deploying their wings during the day. They were far too vulnerable to sunlight, even through thick cloud cover. If any of her kind knew what she intended to do, they would call her crazy, and not without reason. _What happened to not pulling any more stunts?_ But she was energised from drinking the blood of someone she loved, felt really restless, and she had barely gotten to fly at all for decades for fear of getting discovered, even at night. She sort of envied Sayo's recklessness. However thanks to Aya they were shielded from outside eyes in this location. So long as she didn't go too high up, no one would see, no matter how much she flapped around. So she wanted to be a little reckless for once. But first she needed to make sure her wings were safe.

"If you can make sure to cover the parts I have a hard time reaching, I can handle the rest." She retrieved a second bottle (she always carried at least that much with her because she worried too much otherwise), pulled a chair out away from the table, and sat down on it backwards so her wings were freely exposed.

"O-okay." Aya sounded nervous, which was understandable. It would be the first time she actually touched Chisato's wings, so she wouldn't know what to expect.

Chisato was nervous too, since she couldn't fully remember how long it had been since anyone but her mother had touched them. Fifty years? Maybe a hundred? More? Maybe not quite that long. She folded them around herself, so she could start applying the sunblock. They were very flexible, so she didn't have any issues reaching most of them. It was basically just like smearing sunblock on your arms. Though when she felt Aya's touch, she involuntarily twitched.

"Ch-Chisato-chan? D-did I do something wrong?" Aya sounded almost panicked.

"Oh, no. No no. Just caught me by surprise... uh... the cream was kinda... uh... cold." _Is that the best excuse you can come up with? Really? Can't you just admit that having someone else touch them feels different?_ "M-make sure you get both sides done properly." _You've been dating for nearly half a year, that's a lot in human terms, there's nothing wrong with admitting you like her touch. You've had sex!_ If it wasn't for the fact that she'd literally be arguing with herself, she would have tried to come up with some counter-arguments. Hina kept wanting to show everyone memes, and Chisato had seen some where someone said something embarrassing, and then started mentally screaming, but she hadn't thought she'd actually experience it.

"Oh... okay." Aya began spreading the cream onto the wings, starting with the left. Though there was one issue.

"I-it kinda tickles if you don't use a firmer touch, Aya-chan." It was all Chisato could do to not squirm.

"Oh! Sorry!"

Thankfully Aya immediately started rubbing a little harder. That only left the issue of having what was essentially Chisato's bare skin rubbed by someone else's hand. Even if it was technically no different from having her bare arms rubbed, it somehow felt more intimate. She usually kept them hidden, after all. And just because they were tougher than regular skin (they needed the strength to carry her into the air), it didn't make them any less sensitive. _It's exactly the same as if Aya-chan was applying sunblock to my back._ Though that would probably also feel pretty good when she thought about it. _Can magical girls give magical massages?_

"Um... how can I be sure I've gotten everything?" Aya suddenly asked.

"Huh?" It took Chisato a moment to snap out of it. "Oh! Right. Hang on..." She reached into her handbag for a flashlight with a wide beam. "See here?" She shone it on her arm, and the wing she'd been working on. It was a curious red light that gave her skin a visible sheen, and made it sparkle slightly. At least parts of it. "If it sparkles, it's protected. If it doesn't, then... it's not," she said, and handed it to Aya. It was lucky that she always kept it with her, even though she didn't really need it much herself any longer. She had developed a sense for it, so she could feel whether it was on or not, but it sometimes helped to make sure. And it was very useful to give to someone like Aya, who couldn't tell by sight or sense.

It took them a bit of time, but they got it done. Chisato got to stretch and flex her wings while Aya checked them thoroughly with the light to make sure they'd gotten them covered properly.

"I'm not seeing any clear spots, Chisato-chan," Aya said, and returned the flashlight. "But why did we do this? I know you like to stretch them sometimes, but..."

"I plan to take advantage of what you have set up for us, Aya-chan."

"W-wait, you mean you're going to fly?"

"Yes. And not just that." It occurred to Chisato that Aya hadn't actually seen her fly of her own power yet. There had never been an opportunity before. That made her feel even more excited. _What's wrong with me?_

Chisato headed outside, paused just long enough to stretch her wings, and made sure she didn't feel anything burning anywhere. Thankfully there was nothing of the sort, so she folded them back up behind her, and strode over to her destination.

"Sayo-chan," she called out as she opened the door. Only to find she wasn't there. _I guess I was gone for a while._ Her next guess was the room where Moca was training, and there she found Sayo dressed as a prince, while Tsugumi was a princess. Moca appeared to be taking a break while those two were preoccupied with each other. It made sense that everyone was starting to wind down. One might almost think they were acting out some theatre scene, except neither was saying anything. "Sayo-chan," she called out again.

Sayo jumped, then turned to look towards the door. "Oh, Shirasagi... san?"

Chisato smiled. "How would you like some flight training?"

Moca and Tsugumi came outside with them, and Maya also came over, curious what was going on. After which she went over to notify the rest, on the basis that Ako would probably be really sad if she missed this.

"I'm not a much better fighter today than I was yesterday, Shirasagi-san," Sayo pointed out. "Attempting sparring in the air seems rather sudden."

Chisato spread her wings. Fully stretched out each of them was longer than she was tall. The cold air was refreshing in spite of the sun pressing down on them. "We have to start somewhere, Sayo-chan. And we might not get another chance in a long time." Even if they could occasionally meet up for martial arts training back home, they had nowhere to actually go flying without Aya's help. She started doing slow flapping motions with her wings. It took her a moment to recall how it worked, but then it all came flooding back to her. Just like riding a bike. She bent her knees slightly, and did a jump in time with a powerful flap. _I'm in the air._ Of course it was just a day since Aya had flown them out here, but flying of her own power was truly a different experience. "But let's not worry so much about fighting technique. Let's just practice a bit of manoeuvring."

"Alright." Sayo did a light kick off the ground, and simply floated up to Chisato's level. It seemed like a much more convenient way to fly, but she had to wonder if it had the same kind of satisfaction to it. It probably didn't really matter when you couldn't compare anyway.

"Whooooaaaaaaa!" That sound probably signalled that Ako had arrived.

"Now follow my lead, Sayo-chan. And do your best to keep up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So slow... the writing has been going so slow. Never stuck, just sloooooow.   
> My original thought had been "I'm sure I'll get one chapter up on Wednesday, another on Friday, and then the epilogue on Sunday". Now it's Saturday before I even got the first one out. Remind me to never promise any sort of deadline ever again. All I can really say now is it'll be done when it's done. I've been struggling to focus the past week, but I want to steer this boat into port before I take a break or move on.


	14. Day 2: Tsugumi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the club's self-appointed secretary, and the only member to not get a chapter yet, I figured I'd let Tsugumi handle the wrap-up of the training camp.
> 
> All that's left now is writing the epilogue.

Tsugumi had gotten to see some amazing things from the others during camp, and it sort of made her wish she'd tried to do something herself. She had come up with a few ideas to practice coordination between her selves during the day, but it hadn't been practical to carry them out with so little time left. For the most part she had stuck with Moca, as she wanted to keep an eye on her. At first it had been because she had nothing else to do, but after Moca had passed out Tsugumi had started to worry. Moca was probably right about that being how the others felt about Tsugumi when she pushed herself. That was another reason she hadn't really done anything. Of course she could have split into all the others so she could have worked on something of her own, but she'd had to promise before she went that she wouldn't do that. Sayo probably wouldn't have been pleased if she saw two (or three) extra Tsugumis running around either.

But as the club's self-appointed secretary she'd had one other going around, and taking notes on everyone's progress. Nothing to make a big deal about. The only other things she'd really done with the others was catching Moca, and carrying out an experiment with Arisa.

She thought about how far her life had strayed from normal in the past year. Technically things had never been strictly normal considering herself, Moca, and Ako, but it had been normal for them. What they could do had just been everyday stuff. Of course all of Afterglow had suspected there were more people with unusual abilities out there, since they knew of three people just in their tiny group. They just hadn't known how many, where they might be, or what they could do. Then all of a sudden she knew a telepath, an invisible girl, a magical girl, a wall-crawler, someone who healed from anything, and Ako had gone to space. And currently she was watching her super girlfriend flying around with a vampire. It had been her idea to start the club, but she hadn't imagined it would turn into this. None of them had.

Of the three members of the club who could fly, none of them did so in the same way. Aya simply acted as if the laws of nature no longer applied to her, and could zoom along at incredible speed, far faster than Tsugumi was comfortable with. At least in the way they had flown to camp. She liked having someone to hold on to, and who held onto her, like when she flew with Sayo.

Sayo's flying seemed similar to Aya's at a glance, as she simply floated along unassisted as well, but Tsugumi knew both from going with her, and from talking to her, that gravity and such still very much applied to her. She had to carry whomever she might fly with properly, she couldn't simply hold their hand. It was much cosier that way, so Tsugumi really didn't mind it. Her girlfriend was very strong, so she felt safe and supported. Though that was also part of the reason Sayo felt awkward about taking anyone else flying. It was a bit intimate. So it had only been Tsugumi, and Hina so far. Apparently Hina had been very excited, since the last time they'd flown together was when they were still kids.

And finally Chisato who used actual wings to fly. It seemed more difficult for her to hover in place, as flapping her wings made her rise up, then drop down in rhythm with them. While she was moving it wasn't as noticeable, though you could still see her get a bit of lift whenever she flapped. Tsugumi had to wonder if the wings were really all there was to it, or if there was some supernatural element helping to keep her aloft as well, but they certainly looked strong enough for the job. They were kinda reminiscent of bat wings. No feathers, and they looked a bit like tough leather. She could definitely see how they might lead to legends about vampires turning into bats, or perhaps spawn stories of gargoyles or demons if you just saw the silhouette at night. Though at this point she wouldn't have been surprised if gargoyles and demons were also real.

After Chisato and Sayo were done swooping around, it was the general sense among the group that they might as well wrap things up. It was even earlier than the "earlier" they had previously discussed, but not by that much. No one really felt like they'd be able to focus on any more training with what little time was left. They could head home early, or take the time to look around the town some more.

"Okay, time for everyone to share what they're learned, assuming you want to," Tsugumi announced. She had her notebook and pencil ready. Maybe it was risky to take notes on the club, and its members considering what it would reveal should anyone find it, but it was something they had all agreed to. "Who wants to start?" One hand shot up immediately. "Ako-chan?"

"Yeah! I've learned space is really big!"

 _Shouldn't you have already known that?_ "I meant about your power," Tsugumi specified.

"Oh! Um... I've learned I'm really good at spotting things. Even if they're far away, going fast, or well hidden." Ako scratched her head a little. "I suppose I kinda already knew all that... but it was cool to see just how powerful my Dark Gaze of Truth is! Fufufu~."

"I'm still amazed she spotted that cat," Aya said. "But I guess we already told that story."

"Mhm..." Tsugumi scribbled down a quick summary. "Any more luck seeing through solid objects?" She remembered that being something Ako had mentioned before.

"Um... no." Ako deflated a little. "Transparent stuff isn't a problem, but solid things are no good."

 _So it's probably not like x-ray vision then_ , Tsugumi noted mentally. But apparently clouds were not solid enough to stop her from seeing through them, which was interesting. "Well, you can do really amazing things, Ako-chan," she added with a smile. "And learning what we can't do is also really important."

"Yes," Rinko agreed, and patted Ako on the head.

Ako perked up again. "Oh! Why don't you show them next, Rin-rin?"

"Eh?" Rinko jumped a little. "I suppose I... can do that..." Everyone's eyes fell on her as she walked a little away from the group, and stood with her back to them. "Don't get too close... please..." They gave her room, and for a moment nothing seemed to be happening, then she vanished. A couple of seconds later she reappeared a short distance ahead of where she'd been.

"Ooohhhh~!"

She was met with a round of applause as she came walking back to them. "I have learned... how to go where I want... a little." She rubbed her arm awkwardly. "I get nervous... about going very far... or if anything is in the way... but I... I can do it."

Ako could no longer contain herself, and ran forth to give Rinko a big hug.

"Congratulations, Rinko-senpai," Misaki said.

"Very well done, Rinko-san." Maya was still clapping gently.

"Moca-chan always believed in you~."

"Thank you." Rinko smiled softly. "I'm glad I got to... know you all." She squeezed Ako. "Especially you... Ako-chan. Without your support... I don't know where I'd be."

"You're welcome, Rin-rin!" Ako sounded very proud, though it was probably more of Rinko than herself.

"And Maruyama-san too... without your help... practising would have been... very difficult. Thank you."

"Aw..." Aya had already taken out a tissue to wipe away her tears. "I'm so glad it paid off, Rinko-chan."

"B-but... um... can we move on? I don't have... more to show..." Rinko was looking increasingly red. She wasn't someone who was too comfortable being the centre of attention.

"Okay~!" Moca raised her hand. "Moca-chan would also like to show off~."

"Be careful, Moca-chan." Tsugumi had of course known it was coming, but she still couldn't help worrying.

"Of course~. Fufu~, I will be fine~, Tsugu~." Moca stepped forth with a smug expression. "Now let me show you my new level of mastery~." Her appearance started to morph, or more specifically one part of it. Her coat changed to look exactly like Misaki's wool jumper. "Behold~."

"Whoa." Misaki actually stepped closer, and started comparing the jumpers. Probably to see how close the recreation was.

It seemed like a small thing, but it was the first time most of them had seen Moca change anything about her appearance that wasn't her body. Maybe they hadn't even seen her change only part of herself before, since Moca liked copying the entire person she shifted into. She claimed it was easier that way, but Tsugumi had seen her change things like only doing the face before, so that wasn't new to her. She was still impressed at how quickly Moca seemed to have figured out the clothing thing, but she didn't want to inflate Moca's ego too much.

In turn she changed into each of the others' coats (or other topwear), and even shifted her trousers a couple of times after Ako asked.

"See~? Moca-chan truly is a genius~." It seemed like her ego was sufficiently inflated regardless. "I can even do this~." Her entire outfit started morphing, and turned into a full police uniform. Even including the cap.

"That's amazing, Moca-chan," Arisa said. "Though... some of the details are a little off." Which was true. The size was good, and it would probably pass at a distance, but close up it didn't look quite right. The kanji on the jacket weren't entirely correct, the patch on the sleeve was just a blurry mess, and the badge on the cap looked a bit off as well. Tsugumi wasn't well enough acquainted with it to say exactly what was wrong, but it didn't look right. There were other discrepancies as well that made it seem more like a Halloween costume than the real thing.

"Sadly the great Moca-chan is not blessed with a perfect memory~," Moca said as her outfit reverted to normal. "Even sadder is that keeping up a full change like that for very long is difficult~. And Tsugu said I'm not allowed to change body and outfit at the same time any longer~."

"I don't want you passing out again, Moca-chan." Tsugumi pouted.

Moca heaved a dramatic sigh. "It's not much use that way~. I shall just have to do endurance training on my own~. Woe is me~."

"It's still weird to think of you and training in the same sentence, if I'm honest." Arisa said what probably more than one person was thinking.

"Well~, then why don't you share with the class, Arisa~?"

"Me? Uh, sure. Yeah." Arisa wasn't someone who was too fond of being in the spotlight either, but she actually seemed a little excited. It could be hard to tell, but once you got to know her the signs were pretty obvious. "Yeah, so... I'm sure most of you noticed, but I figured out to talk. With my mind. I mean, telepathically." Maybe excited, but definitely nervous too. "I'm going to show you, so please don't freak out. Okay?" She waited, probably to see if everyone was truly okay with it, even though most of them had already experienced it. "Okay, here I go," she said once she was satisfied.

_~Hi there. I'm talking right into your minds. Pretty cool, huh?~_

Maybe it was just Tsugumi's imagination, but Arisa's mind-voice sounded a bit different from her regular one. Not that she sounded like someone else, but her tone seemed different. As if she was more confident, or something like that.

"Interesting..." Sayo mumbled. As far as Tsugumi knew she was one of the few who hadn't experienced it before.

"Um... but since I've yet to manage to connect with Chisato-senpai, I'll keep talking out loud." Arisa cleared her throat. "It's sort of an all-or-nothing thing. I connect to everyone in close proximity if I can feel their minds. Thankfully not everyone within range, or things could easily get awkward. I hope I'm able to figure out how to connect to just one person even if I'm close to more people, but... uh, I'm struggling a bit there at the moment." She seemed embarrassed. "I've also done a few tests today. First off I asked Aya-senpai to try to connect with me outside of mind-reading range, since she was able to connect first yesterday. I guess you can call it a half-success. Like, she was able to connect to me even from outside my range, but I wasn't able to do the same. I mean, I could talk to her, but if she cut the connection, I wasn't able to re-establish it myself. I also tried with Misaki out of range, but couldn't get a connection with her either."

"Hey, it was worth a shot," Misaki said.

"You'll figure it out!" Ako sounded confident.

"At least I can contact you," Aya-senpai said. That could be helpful if it was ever necessary, though hopefully it wouldn't be. And it was hard to say how much of that was only possible due to Aya's magic, and how much anyone could figure out how to do.

"Yeah. It seems like if I've already established a connection, I can keep it open so long as they stay in range, but I wasn't able to keep it beyond that except with Aya-senpai. I've also been trying to see if I can connect different people to each other, to let them talk to each other via me, but no luck there either." Arisa let out a slight sigh. "Rinko-senpai thinks it might be because you don't know how to speak telepathically yourself, and I'm not able to let you read each other's minds. I don't know for sure, but I guess that would make sense. I'm also not sure whether it's possible for you to learn, but I _think_ so. See, that brings me to my last test."

Tsugumi was aware of this one.

"I wanted to check with Tsugumi-chan whether connecting with her would let me also talk to her... uh... others. It didn't exactly work that way, but it had a very interesting effect. Maybe Tsugumi-chan can explain it better herself?"

"Huh?" Tsugumi hadn't expected that, but it probably made sense for her to do it. "Um, sure." She took a moment to think. It was always difficult to put her experiences with her selves into words. "Okay, so I don't remember how much I've told you all before about how I communicate with my others over distance?" There were several blank stares. "Right. Well, I can't exactly talk as such. I don't tell myself things with words, it's more like... uh... imagine sending texts with only emojis." It wasn't a perfect analogy, but it would do. "I can give myself brief status updates, for example letting me know where I am, feeling if I get hurt, ask to meet up, let me know to stay away, or tell myself who I've met. Not verbal, more... um... image and emotion based." She had no idea whether that really made sense to anyone else. "When I connected with Arisa-chan it was like my communication options were boosted. I could suddenly tell my selves things in full sentences. It was... odd. I don't know if that's something I can learn to do on my own as well, or whether it only works with Arisa-chan's help."

"Whoa! Maybe the Arisa Wifi Network is possible then!" Ako said in a very excited voice.

"Huh?"

"Ako-chan brought up the idea that if it was possible for me to connect you all with each other, it could be like a... a secret group chat kind of thing," Arisa explained.

"Yeah!"

"That might be a little tiring though... but yeah, I never would have expected Tsugumi-chan's and my powers to interact like that. She was even able to reply telepathically to me. I guess she has some experience talking to herself." Arisa giggled.

"Eheh, I just explained... oh well, something like that," Tsugumi said. She felt a little proud that aside from Aya she was the only one able to talk telepathically with Arisa. And it was probably correct that communicating between her selves, even if it hadn't been verbal, let her figure it out that quickly. Though it occurred to her that everyone who knew how to speak telepathically had some special circumstances. Her own power seemingly involved something akin to telepathy, even if she had never thought about it that way. Aya was a magical girl, so everything about her was a special circumstance. And Chisato had mentioned experience with other telepaths, but she was a vampire. It was still uncertain what anyone with a 'normal' human brain was capable of.

"It just occurred to me that we didn't think to test whether that means I can let Tsugumi-chan talk to anyone else... but... uh... maybe we can save that for later..." Arisa hesitated.

"Yeah, that might be for the best." Tsugumi could understand not wanting to put themselves under any pressure by trying right then and there. At least it meant that if the situation called for it, they could have Tsugumi divided among several groups, and with Arisa's help pass along messages without having to hold a phone. If they ran into something like that giant monster again, or another crisis, it might be better to not have to fumble with a piece of technology that was easy to drop.

"That's it for me, I think. Though I guess it was actually quite a lot... sorry..."

"No need to apologise, Arisa-san," Maya was quick to say.

"I appreciate your dedication, Arisa-chan," Chisato said.

"Indeed. It is good to be thorough," Sayo agreed. "However I do not have a lot to report for myself. I hope to continue my martial arts training. There's not really a lot to explain. I will give further thought to attending a regular class, Shirasagi-san." She nodded at Chisato. "Though I am still worried I'll hurt someone."

"Understood. It is entirely up to you, Sayo-chan."

Everyone had ended up turning up for all of Sayo's big moments anyway, so there wasn't a lot to add to that. Arisa's power was one that was hard to demonstrate, and required further explanation. Sayo's was easy enough to demonstrate, but there wasn't a lot to say about it. So it made sense there would be a significant difference in how much was said.

Tsugumi was both embarrassed and happy that Sayo had taken the time to come dress up with her, though. Sayo was so beautiful that Tsugumi found her dazzling. Even though they'd been going out for a while she never seemed to get used to it. And she made quite the handsome prince too. _She's so cool._ But maybe it wasn't the right time to daydream.

"Anyone else want to say anything?" she asked. No one stepped forth, so Tsugumi checked her notes. Maybe everyone had done their turn.

"What about you, Misaki-chin~?" Moca suddenly asked.

"Me?" Misaki shook her head. "No. You all saw what I went through. I did nothing else of note."

"I was quite impressed by your performance, Misaki-chan," Chisato said.

"Thanks. But you're not getting me to do it again."

"You're sure? I was thinking we could test from different angles next, to see if you can sense things coming from every direction. Maybe everyone could encircle you..."

"Uh-uh. No way." Misaki's mind seemed firmly made up.

Arisa patted her on the shoulder. "I understand how you feel, but maybe-"

"Arisa, don't." Misaki cut her off. "Not you too."

"Hahaha, I was just kidding, no need to run away, eesh." Arisa grinned.

It took Tsugumi a moment to realise Misaki must have thought about it. "Well, I guess that's it then." She looked around to see if anyone had any objections. "The SF club's first training camp is complete. Good work, everyone."

"First? We're having another?" Aya asked.

"Um... we might? I said it just in case. Anyway, I guess with Aya-san's help we can head home whenever we want, but there's still time to do more in town before we leave."

"Hot springs," Misaki said immediately.

"Hot springs~," Moca concurred.

"Hot springs..." Rinko also seemed in favour.

Everyone was probably getting extra chilly just standing around outside like they were. Tsugumi still needed to get souvenir shopping done, even though she also wanted to slip away with Sayo again. They'd had such a nice walk the evening before. But she didn't mind warming up, and getting clean first. Moca was really good at souvenirs, so she'd appreciate her help. In the band Moca and Himari really had the best eyes for that stuff.

"Alright, I guess we're going another round in the hot springs before anything else."

It was nice that the camp had worked out so well for those who wished to improve. It was a shame all her ideas for what she could do herself had come a bit too late, but at least she'd done that test with Arisa. If they did another camp, she could work on those ideas then. And she supposed it might count as homework. Next time it might be nice to go closer to summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of calling out myself here for not thinking of anything to do with Tsugumi sooner, and completely forgetting I could just have her others going around doing stuff while she was with Moca. My first idea was actually that she would have gone around taking notes while on break, before I realised she could just make an extra do it...
> 
> In theory the epilogue should be quick enough to write, but so was this entire fic supposed to be "in theory". No matter how long or short it turns out, I'll just post it all in one chunk when it's done.


	15. Epilogue: Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the epilogue I just wanted to do a bunch of fluffy romantic scenes for everyone. Not everyone got equal treatment in terms of length, like Misaki's got especially long. But I haven't done any MisaKanon in quite a while, so it felt like I had a lot to get out of my system.
> 
> Scenes in order:  
> RanMoca  
> AkoRinko  
> EveMaya  
> SayoTsugu  
> KasuAri  
> MisaKanon  
> ChisaAya

The flight back home was more relaxed than the one to the camp. In part because there was no surprise this time, and because they had figured out a height and speed that let more people enjoy the ride and the landscape. Maya still didn't want to watch, and to avoid her having to hold her eyes closed for the 20-30 minutes the trip was estimated to take this time, Rinko had let her borrow one of those of sleep masks that covered the eyes. Moca and Rinko were sitting with Ako, who was pointing out stuff they flew by. Sayo and Tsugumi were also off to the side watching, though Tsugumi was still holding onto Sayo's arm quite firmly. Arisa and Misaki were keeping each other busy playing cards. Meanwhile Aya was sitting in the middle of everyone, steering the ship (so to speak), with a drowsy-looking Chisato leaning against her.

Everyone was probably at least a little drowsy. Now that it was all over, every bit of struggling to sleep, both before and during the camp, and every exertion they'd made was starting to really set in. The excitement that had kept many of them going was draining away. The final time they'd spent in town had flown by fast enough that the sun was very close to setting. By the time they were back in Edogawa the light had faded enough that the streetlights had turned on. They could still see, but in that way where lights definitely looked brighter than usual. Aya was going to drop off everyone somewhere close to their home so they could walk back hopefully without raising any suspicion.

* * *

First to get dropped off was Moca. She waved at everyone even after they went invisible, assuming they could still see her, then headed home with an extra spring in her step. She hadn't had much trouble sleeping before or during the camp. It was something that came natural to her no matter the circumstances, so while the effort of shape-shifting as much as she had over the past two days was certainly felt, she still had some excitement waiting for her.

She only made a quick stop at home to drop off her luggage and souvenirs (most of them at least), and greet her parents before heading back out. She wanted to visit another home instead.

"Ra~n," she called out as soon as she opened the door to her beloved's room.

Ran looked up from her desk. "Welcome home, Moca."

Moca flopped onto Ran's bed. "It's good to be back, but~... you didn't come greet me~." She did her best pout.

"I figured you were coming right here anyway," Ran said with a slight smile.

Moca had texted ahead, and Ran had absolutely figured correctly, but she felt like she needed to display at least a bit of displeasure. "And here I thought you would be so excited see your darling Moca-chan that you just couldn't wait~. Woe is me~."

Ran rolled her eyes. "Alright, I'm sorry."

"Hehe~. Apology accepted~." Moca grinned. "So~, whatcha doing~?"

Ran shrugged. "Just passing time."

"Oohhhh~, waiting for your dear Moca-chan to arrive maybe~?"

"Maybe."

"Well~! I brought you souvenirs~." She sat back up, and picked up the bag she'd taken along.

"Oh?"

"Mhm~. I picked out some treats that I promise are not too sweet~, and also~... could you come here, please~?"

"Hm? Sure." Ran got out of her chair, and sat down next to Moca.

Moca took something out of the bag, and put it on Ran's wrist. "Ta-dah~."

"A bracelet?" Ran lifted her hand to look at it. It looked like five snowflake crystals threaded together. The crystals were a gentle red colour.

"Mhm~. A good luck charm~." Though a lot of places claimed their souvenirs were good luck charms. "I got a matching one~." Moca raised her hand to show one with blue-green crystals, though the shapes were the same. It had taken her a bit of searching to make sure she got the right combination, since there were several designs at the shop.

"Ah. Thank you, Moca." Ran smiled. "That's very sweet of you."

Moca nearly swooned. Ran had gotten much better at smiling since she made up with her father. While she called him embarrassing, she was clearly happier like this. "I have something else to show you as well~," she said, and got up.

Ran watched her as she took a moment to focus, then shape-shifted her outfit to look like the one Ran was wearing. But only the outfit.

"See~? Now we match this way too~. Fufu~." Moca smiled smugly. "Are you impressed, Ra~n?"

"Huh..." Ran got up, and touched the sweater. "It feels just like mine too... I guess the camp paid off, huh?"

"Yup~. I worked hard~."

"Normally I'd be dubious of such a statement from you, but you have something to show for it."

"Fufu~. Moca-chan is great, after all~." Though she was starting to feel a little light-headed, so her outfit morphed back to normal. "Unfortunately I can't hold it for very long~..."

Ran took her arm, and helped her sit back down. "So it's harder than changing your whole body?"

"Mm~... I don't know why~, but yes~." Moca suppressed a yawn. Being tired probably wasn't helping. "Tsugu will probably tell you this anyway~, so I might as well tell you first~. The first time I shifted both body and outfit at the same time~, I might have~... passed out~. Very briefly~."

"You..." Ran sighed, and pinched Moca's cheek. "Moca! You're too reckless."

"Ow... ow ow ow, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ran~."

Ran let go. "I assume Tsugumi already scolded you." Moca nodded while rubbing her cheek. "I thought so. I'll still tell you to not do it again. Please?"

"It was an accident~. But Moca-chan promises to be more careful~. I just wanted to impress you, Ra~n."

Ran raised an eyebrow. "Is that really something you should admit? Oh well." She patted Moca on the head. "I guess I'm impressed."

"Yay~." Moca beamed, and turned her head. Ran took the hint, and met her halfway for a kiss. "I'm gonna stay the night~, okay~?"

"You are?"

"Mhm~. I'm too tired to walk back home~."

"A convenient excuse, though looking at you I can believe it." Ran pushed the hair away from Moca's face, and gave her a light kiss on the forehead as well. "Alright, let's at least get you downstairs for dinner. Knowing you, you're probably starving."

"Ehehe~." Moca couldn't deny that. "I love you, Ra~n."

Ran blushed slightly while helping her up. "Yeah, yeah. I love you too, Moca."

* * *

Ako was the second to step off, and Rinko decided to join her. She could go straight home whenever she wanted to, after all. The two of them waved goodbye as the MG Express headed off towards its next stop. While they quickly turned invisible for Rinko, Ako could still see them fly off.

The two of them headed for the Udagawa home, and Ako decided to hold Rinko's hand for the short walk. The lack of sleep was catching up to her. She had barely slept before they left, and while she had gotten a bit during their night at the ryokan it was probably not enough. But it was too early to call it a night yet. It wasn't even fully dark, and she had things to do.

She let the both of them in.

"I'm home!" she called out. "Onee-chan!"

However it turned out Tomoe was not home at the moment, it was just their parents. While she hadn't filled them in on her plans, Tomoe had promised to be home by dinner. Perhaps she was out with Himari again.

Rinko left her suitcase by the door. It wouldn't do to teleport home directly from Ako's room, as questions would be asked about where she had gone. Their standard procedure was to have Rinko leave normally, then teleport from a safe spot outside. Ako kinda wished they could just fill their parents in on each other, but circumstances made it tricky. There had never been anything that had tipped them off about Ako's sight being special, and it felt weird to try to tell them at this point. She wasn't sure how to explain it, and ultimately Tomoe had recommended that they might as well not bring it up. As for Rinko her parents of course knew, it was hard for them not to, but they didn't know Ako was also special.

It hadn't been that hard to get Ako's parents to agree to let her go on the trip even if they didn't know what kind of club it actually was, though that was largely because they trusted Tsugumi. Ako felt lucky they were in the same club.

They went up to Ako's room, and Ako stowed her suitcase by the wardrobe. She'd unpack later. Meanwhile Rinko made herself at home, and took a seat. Ako decided that instead of sitting down next to her, she'd straddle her lap instead.

"A-Ako-chan?"

"Do you mind, Rin-rin?"

Rinko smiled, and gently shook her head. "No." She gently folded her arms around Ako's lower back.

Ako grinned, and put her arms over Rinko's shoulders before leaning in to kiss her.

"Mmm..." Rinko hummed. "Aren't you tired, Ako-chan?"

"Not yet." That probably counted as a white lie. It probably wouldn't be hard to fall asleep in Rinko's arms, but she could keep going a little longer.

"I'm kinda tired..." Rinko said. "But I had... a lot of fun."

Ako nodded. "Me too. You're so amazing, Rin-rin."

"I wouldn't go that far... but I guess I... grew a little. You're amazing too, Ako-chan." Rinko helped herself to another kiss.

"Hehe~." Ako rested her forehead against Rinko's. Maybe that was a dangerous manoeuvre, but she had a very nice, and soft girlfriend. "I was thinking... do you think I should get glasses?"

"Huh? Why would you... need glasses?"

"I was thinking like... reverse glasses. To limit my power. And then when it came time to get serious, I could remove them in a cool way." Ako leaned back, and tried to mime the way she'd seen in some movies and anime. Rinko giggled. "And I could get really cool frames, like with little wings on the side. I could call them my... uh... Demonic... no... Abyss... um... Underworld... glasses..."

"Underworld Spectacles?"

"Yeah!"

Rinko was a lot better at coming up with that stuff than Ako. That was another reason they were such perfect partners.

The two of them spent a while cuddling, and Ako's body gradually felt heavier. It was so comfy. Then suddenly Rinko's phone beeped, startling them both.

"Uh... it's from mum... she's wondering where I am... dinner is soon." Rinko sighed. "I'm sorry, Ako-chan... seems like I have to go..."

Ako stole another kiss. "It's okay. I guess that means we're eating soon too." She didn't really want to get up, but she did so anyway while Rinko texted a quick reply. "Um... do you still remember how to go home?" Since they'd just spent two days training how to not do that, maybe that would get Rinko mixed up.

Rinko hesitated a little. "I should be fine..."

They headed downstairs, Rinko said goodbye, and headed outside. Shortly after Ako received a text that Rinko was safely home.

"Ako, could you get your sister? Dinner's almost ready," her mum told her.

"Onee-chan's back?!"

"Yes. She went upstairs to change, I think."

Ako hurried up the stairs, and burst right into Tomoe's room. "Onee-chan!"

"Oh, Ako." Tomoe was so used to what Ako was like that she barely even jumped. She was in the middle of putting on a hoodie. "How was-"

"I went to space!"

"You... what?"

"Yeah!" Ako hopped onto the bed. "It's big! And black! And sparkly! And... and..."

Tomoe pulled the hoodie down over her head. "And?" She looked at her sister. "Ako?" Ako was lying on her side. "Did she fall asleep? Oh, I guess so." Tomoe picked her up. "Come on. You can drool on your own pillow instead of mine," she said, even though Ako could no longer hear.

* * *

Maya'd had to return the face mask when Rinko stepped off, but thankfully her's was the next stop. She was so grateful to be on solid ground again that she almost forgot to say goodbye to everyone.

She was probably the least tired out of all of them. Not just because she hadn't done much of anything, but also because she'd had very little issue sleeping. She was used to sleeping in all sorts of places. So long as she could roll herself up snugly, or find a tight space to fit into, she was out like a light without problem. Many people would probably envy her if they knew about that.

It had still been an exciting weekend. Everyone had made great strides forwards, even if they didn't necessarily think so themselves. Yet again it made her wish she had an active power. There was no real training or progress to be made for her. In a sense it suited her to just be a backstage person. There were still plenty of things she could do to help out, and her hardiness was sure to come in handy should they encounter another crisis. It was hard to get rid of that vision of teeth, but she had managed to make a difference that day. Just a couple of lives, but that was enough. Of course she hoped they'd never have to face anything similar again, but she had a tendency to plan for every possibility.

She wouldn't have said no to the ability to lift cars, or turn invisible, but she needed to focus on what she _could_ do, not what she couldn't. Perhaps taking a martial arts class wasn't the worst idea.

"Maya-san!"

Maya shook out of her thoughts, and saw someone unexpected standing outside her house. "Eve-san?" Eve hurried down the sidewalk to meet Maya. "What are you doing here?"

"I hurried over as soon as I got your message. I'm glad I made it." Eve's smile was brighter than any of the streetlights.

Maya was dumbstruck. "But... you don't exactly live close..."

"I'm very fast." Eve said proudly.

"Eve-san, you didn't have to-"

"I wanted to, Maya-san." Eve put her hands around Maya's free one. They were warmer than expected. She didn't seem particularly out of breath, but maybe she had ran over there, and warmed up because of it. "How was camp?"

Maya walked with her the short way to the house while trying to ignore how warm her face was getting. "A lot happened, but it was fun."

"That's good! I wish I could have gone with."

While Eve didn't know any of the other members' identities, not even Aya or Chisato, she knew of the club. She had to be curious, but her sense of honour kept her from prying any details out of Maya. Honestly Maya figured she could probably keep everyone's secrets, but that wasn't her decision to make. It was an ongoing discussion within the club how much they should share with their loved ones, especially the ones that were already friends with several members. Eve was well-acquainted with Aya, Chisato, Tsugumi, Arisa, and even Misaki to a lesser extent. But several members, Sayo and Chisato especially, felt that it was best to keep their secrets to as few people as possible. But ultimately it was up to each of them who they let in on their secret, so long as they didn't out anyone else.

As they entered the house, and Maya announced her homecoming, it occurred to her that she had to find some opportunity to put back everything she had borrowed from the house. And she didn't have Aya's magic to help disguise her any longer. At least she was surprisingly light on her foot.

Eve came with her upstairs to put away her cases. The one with the costumes would have to come with her to school the next day. Hopefully she wouldn't forget.

"Maya-san." Eve wasted no time shuffling in close, and stealing a kiss. She'd probably call it a form of ninjutsu if asked, but Maya wasn't able to because her mind went poof at the sensation of her girlfriend's soft lips meeting her own. "Let's go out."

"H-huh? Out?"

"On a date. There's still time today, and we probably won't get spotted after dark. Or... maybe you're too tired?"

"N-no, I feel alright actually, but..."

"With you, Aya-san, and Chisato-san all having the weekend off there wasn't anything scheduled for Hina-san or I either." Hopefully Eve wasn't going to link those together, at least not before Aya and Chisato were ready to tell her. She probably just assumed the two of them had gone on a weekend date somewhere. Maybe that was why she was asking for a date too. "I didn't really have anything to do except miss you, and we haven't gone out in a while." She was being clingy, but that wasn't such a bad thing.

Maya smiled. "Alright."

"Yay!" Eve hugged her tight.

"Just... uh... l-let me change into something more... uh... suitable." Maya had been wearing her current outfit pretty much all weekend, so she'd prefer to get changed if they were going anywhere. "Um... maybe you want to wait outside?"

"No, that's okay. I don't mind."

Maya sighed. _Of course you don't._ Still, she felt kinda excited. They'd need to go somewhere to eat though, because she'd only had some snacks since camp ended.

* * *

The fourth stop was by Hazawa Coffee. Sayo and Tsugumi had discussed whether they wanted to get off together, and if so whose house to go to. The final decision was to drop off at Tsugumi's, since it was easier (if a bit reckless) for Sayo to fly home, than Tsugumi to get home from Sayo's place. And although Hina had figured out that Tsugumi was special even before they had decided to tell her (they didn't deny it), Sayo would rather spend a bit of time alone with Tsugumi before heading home. There would be plenty of time to talk to Hina afterwards.

Sayo wrapped her fingers around Tsugumi's. They felt a little cold. "Want to go for a flight?"

"Haha, I think I'm good for flying at the moment."

Sayo had expected as much, so her suggestion had been half-joking. Getting Tsugumi to laugh was worth it. The bell jingled as they opened the door to the cafe.

"Wel- oh! Welcome back, you two." Tsugumi's mother smiled at them.

"Thanks, mum."

"Thank you, Hazawa-san."

The Hazawas had been very welcoming of Sayo. It had taken them no time at all to warm up to her, and it almost felt like she had a second family already. Maybe it was just her imagination, but Tsugumi's mother almost seemed to be treating her like another daughter. Or daughter-in-law, perhaps. Though it was way too early to think about anything like that. They hadn't even hit their first anniversary.

The cafe was reasonably packed, though that wasn't uncommon on Sundays. No one expected either of them to help out right after returning from a trip, so they went directly upstairs instead, but Sayo was sure it had at least entered Tsugumi's mind.

Once they were inside Tsugumi's room, Sayo finally felt it was okay to relax. She set her case to the side, and dropped onto Tsugumi's bed. Maybe it was silly of her, but she didn't like displaying weakness in front of other people. Tsugumi was the exception, so if it was just the two of them, she was okay with letting down her guard.

"Are you okay, Sayo-san?"

Sayo rolled onto her back. "Yes. More tired than expected, but I'm okay."

"I'm glad you were able to get something out of the camp," Tsugumi said while she found a place to put her own suitcase for the time being.

"Me too. I wasn't sure what to expect when we left, but I feel satisfied with the result." Sayo turned her head to look at Tsugumi. "I'm sorry you didn't get much out of it, Tsugumi-san." If she thought about it rationally, she was aware that they were all perhaps a bit too protective of Tsugumi. But it was hard to be rational about someone she loved that much.

"That's okay." Tsugumi climbed on top of Sayo. "I feel like I understand everyone's concerns better now. And it's not like it was entirely fruitless." She gave Sayo a kiss. "I have some ideas for what I might do next time."

Sayo leisurely wrapped her arms around Tsugumi. "So you're serious about a second camp?"

"Mm... not right away..." They shared more kisses. "But maybe during summer vacation?"

Sayo smiled. "Maybe." Next year would be her senior year, and she'd ended up thinking about that even more lately. She already had her plans for after graduation laid out. In fact she'd had them sorted for a long time. It had never sat right with her to leave decisions to the last minute, certainly not important ones. But now she also had Tsugumi, and would be graduating a year ahead of her. She hadn't yet asked her girlfriend what she intended to do after graduation, and she was slightly worried to do so. Maybe Tsugumi hadn't decided yet, but it seemed unlikely their plans would line up. And it didn't feel right to suggest she should go to the same college for no other reason than sticking together. So it was possible they faced years of having less time to spend together.

Perhaps it was silly to expect your first relationship to last forever anyway, but she was very happy with this adorable brunette. She wanted to enjoy their time together. She wanted it to last. If that was selfish, then so be it. It was for a better reason than most of the other selfish things she had done. She was not afraid to put work into what she wanted.

And at the moment she knew exactly what she wanted. She hugged Tsugumi tighter to draw her into a deeper kiss, and one of her hands wandered downwards. Her fingers touched her girlfriend's warm tights, and slowly pushed her skirt upwards.

"S... Sayo-san..." Tsugumi breath was nice, and warm.

"We have time... don't we?"

Tsugumi glanced sideways. "I guess... about an hour?"

"Then..." Sayo kissed her exposed neck. "Let's make the most of it."

Tsugumi shivered. "Yeah..." Since that was settled, she stopped holding back. Her fingers started tugging on Sayo's clothes, and undoing what buttons they could reach. It was fun when she got really into it.

And Sayo was more than happy to return the favour.

* * *

With all the Haneoka stops done, Arisa was the first Hanasakigawa stop. She said goodbye, thanked Aya once again, and waved briefly at them before she turned her steps homewards. She was more mentally and emotionally worn out than physically. Spending a lot of time with other people depleted her batteries, and though she had come to know the rest of the club pretty well by that point, it was still their first sleepover together of any sort. Going to sleep with nine... well, eight other minds she could feel around her wasn't exactly easy, but she had conked out eventually. Her time with Popipa had helped her prepare a little bit.

It had been exciting, though. She didn't have any regrets about going. Perhaps she regretted her little breakdown, but that was a different story. It had certainly contributed to her tiredness, but at least she had figured things out.

"Arisaaaaa~!"

She looked across the street, and as expected Kasumi was there waving at her. She'd sent her a text before Aya took them back home, and gotten a reply almost immediately saying " _I'll be there!_ " Plus she'd been able to sense the warm beacon of her mind well before she actually saw her.

After making sure there was no traffic, she scurried across to the other side, and was promptly hugged tight.

"Welcome back, Arisa~."

"Ack! Thanks, but... can you at least let me get inside?"

Kasumi was far too unconcerned about where she displayed her affection, but that was probably one of her good traits as well.

They headed inside, and Arisa's grandma let her know that dinner would be in a little over an hour. Kasumi was invited to join, and said yes without hesitation. It was a little strange to think how annoyed Arisa had been at the start that Kasumi just made herself at home like that (and how accepting and supportive her grandma had been right away), but now she was very appreciative of it. _How far we've come._

Next stop was Arisa's room. She had considered going all the way to the basement for even more privacy, but it was far, and she mostly wanted to sit down as soon as possible.

"So how was camp, Arisa~?" Kasumi asked in her typical bubbly way.

"Um..." Arisa didn't mind telling her what she could, but... "Before that... can you... um..." She fidgeted while Kasumi gave her a questioning look. "Can you... can you hold me, Kasumi?"

"Huh?" Kasumi blinked at her for a moment, before she hugged her tight. "Of course!"

"I-I meant while sitting!"

Arisa got Kasumi to sit down, then nuzzled herself against her, so she could be embraced. She had been thinking all day (and some of yesterday) about how she wanted to be held, and there was no one else she could... no, no one else she wanted to ask.

"You're unusually cuddly today, Arisa," Kasumi teased.

"It's not that unusual," Arisa murmured. Maybe it was, but she was growing more open to Kasumi's affection, and wanted to get better at both accepting and asking for it. She had a very nice, loving, and warm girlfriend. Surely it wasn't wrong to ask someone who wanted to give so much.

Kasumi giggled, and gently patted Arisa's head. "So?"

Even without hearing the rest of the question from Kasumi's mind, Arisa probably could have guessed the prompt.

"Camp went okay. No, that's probably underselling it. It was good. Pretty much everyone who wanted to got something out of it. And even some who maybe didn't." She smiled. By all accounts Misaki had asked for it, she just hadn't expected to get that much.

"Even you?"

"Mhm." Arisa shifted her position so she could press her ear against Kasumi's chest. Even through her jumper she could out her heartbeat. "Do you mind if I show you? But you have to promise to not freak out."

"Why would I freak out?"

"Just promise."

"Alright, I promise."

Arisa could feel Kasumi's curiosity very keenly as she connected to her mind.

_~I can do this now.~_

"Whoa!"

"Hey, you said you wouldn't freak out!"

"I'm not freaking out, I'm amazed!" Kasumi smooched her on the head. "Do it more!"

Arisa sighed. _~Alright. So, yeah... I can speak with my mind now.~_

"That's really cool!"

_~You only have to think what you want to say, you know.~_

_Oh yeah!_ Kasumi giggled. _This is almost like having a secret meeting. No one else can hear us._

 _~I suppose so.~_ The level of excitement reminded Arisa of Ako. Unfortunately she couldn't actually tell Kasumi that. The rest of the club's membership was secret to Kasumi, and even though she was very curious, she had enough tact to not ask or pry. Arisa kinda wanted to be open about it, but she knew she couldn't betray anyone else's secrets.

_This means you can tell me all your lewd thoughts without worrying about anyone overhearing._

_~Lewd... I-I don't have lewd thoughts!~_

_Oh really?_

Arisa didn't even have to look at Kasumi to know she was grinning. _~I'm not as horny as you are. Maybe I have some, but~_

_Aha!_

_~I said some! Geez.~_

_Do you mind me being horny?_

_~I wouldn't say that exactly, but there's a time and place for everything.~_

_Not here and now?_

_~Not here and now.~_ Arisa poked Kasumi's tummy, which caused a squeak.

She started telling Kasumi what she could about the camp, though it ended up mostly being about the town they were in. It was hard to talk about much else without accidentally dropping someone's name. She also went through the rough details about what she had actually learned to do, and some of the stuff she still couldn't do.

_Do you think that since you and I are so close, it would be easier for you to connect to me? Like if you were to try to calling me when I'm at home?_

_~Could be.~_ If there was anyone she could do it with, it probably had to be Kasumi. Aside from her grandparents there was no other mind she knew as well. And she was so bright whenever she was around, that maybe it made it easier to find her at a distance too. It was as good a hypothesis as any. _~I'd like to try it out at some point.~_

_You got it! You know, your mind-voice is very soft._

_~Huh? What does that mean?~_

_I mean, you can act kinda prickly sometimes. Even with me and the rest of Popipa. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of that when you speak into my head._

_~Is that so...~_ Arisa had seen similar sentiments in some of the club members' thoughts as well. _~It's not like I want to be that way.~_

 _I know._ Kasumi squeezed her. _I'm always happy when you open up to us, even if it's hard. I love you, Arisa._

 _~I love you too, Kasumi.~_ Maybe Kasumi had a point, since it had felt a lot easier to say that telepathically than out loud. It made a certain amount of sense, since when she read other people's thoughts they also had a tendency to over-share, and be extra honest. An idea hit her. If it truly was easier to speak like this, then maybe it was her chance to finally open up. _~Actually, there is something I want to tell you. Something I remembered.~_

_Oh? What's that?_

It might be unfair to burden Kasumi with trauma from Arisa's past, but she had no one else to share it with.

_~It's about what caused me to stop attending school. Just... please stop me if you feel it becomes too much.~_

_Don't worry. I'll listen._

Arisa started recounting what bits she could remember, even some of what led up to it, while treading as carefully as possible. Both for Kasumi's sake, and her own.

* * *

When Misaki stepped off, she only left Chisato and Aya behind. She said goodbye, then headed home. It had been a very weird weekend. Exciting, but weird. When Ako and Arisa had floated the idea of a training camp, Misaki had been quick to lend her support to it. She was very interested in seeing what everyone could do, and whether they could do more. And had even gotten a little curious about herself, though she had ended up with more than she asked for. There was no doubt in her mind that Chisato had enjoyed putting her through that. Yet it was still not as stressful as the time Hello, Happy World had gone to an amusement park. It was over quicker, at least.

Her general disinterest in her own powers was kinda weird when she thought about it. She probably had the most diverse power-set of any of the members. While she wouldn't say she excelled at anything, she could certainly do a lot. Yet she was far more interested in the others. Maybe it was because she was so used to herself that it had become normal to her, even if she recognised it as completely out of the ordinary. Depending on how many had actually gained powers from the 'triggering event', it was possible she was unique in her combination of them.

It felt like a strange parallel to her time with the band. All of that chaos was becoming a new normal for her. At first she had been scared of that, but now she figured it probably wasn't a bad thing. Her life before they came along had been stagnant, and back then she had thought she was okay with that. If it hadn't been for Kokoro and the others dragging her in, her uneventful, isolated life might have continued forever. Maybe she wouldn't have even gotten into the club.

Not to mention that she had grown fond of the other band members, even though they thought she was actually a bear. Hagumi was like another little sister (even if they were the same age); Kaoru could be hard to read, like how much of her was real, and how much was an act, but her care for others was undoubtedly genuine; Kokoro had probably taken the longest to get a handle on, as she was at once very straightforward, and infinitely mysterious, but she had certainly been a catalyst for (mostly positive) change in all of them; and then finally dear, sweet Kanon was Misaki's first taste of love. She wasn't sure how it was possible to be that soft, and that strong at the same time, but she couldn't help admiring her for it.

"I'm home!"

She went upstairs to put her suitcase away, before coming back down. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do, and dinner was still over an hour away. Preferably not a lot. Maybe she could watch TV with her siblings, or help her mother out. Her decision was made for her as she was told to sit down. Though shortly after she had made herself comfortable the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," she said, and pushed herself back up with a sigh. Who could it be that late on a Sunday? A door to door salesperson, maybe? She opened the door. "Yes, what i- Kanon?"

"Hello, Misaki-chan. I'm so glad I made it." Kanon looked very relieved.

"Uh... what are you... I-I mean, come in."

Kanon stepped inside. "I tried to get here before you, but I took a wrong turn... a few times... fuee~." That sounded about right.

Misaki was also relieved she had made it, and happy to see her. After greeting the family, they went upstairs to get some privacy.

"How did the camp go, Misaki-chan?" Like most of the others outside of the club who were aware of it, Kanon only knew about one member, in her case Misaki. It was possible she suspected Arisa too, considering how Misaki had been scouted, but she hadn't pried.

"It went well. We-" Misaki had almost been about to start giving details, but managed to catch herself. "Uh... we made more progress than I think anyone expected."

Kanon gave her a strange look. "You too?"

"Huh? I... I guess? Why?"

Kanon's fingers gently touched Misaki's cheek. "It's just... you seem kinda tired."

"Oh. I didn't know it was that obvious." Maybe that was why she had been told to sit down.

"Did anything bad happen?"

"No, not bad, just... I got roped into something exhausting. It was kinda my own fault to begin with."

Kanon smiled, and gave Misaki a kiss on the cheek. "Maybe I can help you relax? Like... give you a massage, or... I know! Why don't we take a bath?"

"T-together?"

"Yes. Is that not okay...?"

Misaki had already had a bath that day, even if hot springs were a little different, though that wasn't the main issue. It was that the idea of being nude with Kanon that made her feel really warm. They hadn't limited themselves to only kissing so far, but they hadn't gone all the way to sex either. They were somewhere on the groping scale in between. And they had been in public baths together with everyone in the band, so they had technically seen each other naked already, but a private bath still felt like it was a new step for them. Maybe it was the right time for it.

"It's fine." She smiled. "I'd appreciate it."

They went into the bathroom, got the water started, and got undressed. Misaki's heart was beating pretty heavy, and seemed to just go faster whenever she glanced in Kanon's direction. Kanon was really pretty. Nice, smooth-looking skin, an elegant figure, and just a hint of muscle. HHW were probably the most athletic of the nearby bands, and even Kanon was stronger than one would think. She often carried her drum kit and all related gear by herself, and a lot of the stuff they did as a band could be physically challenging. Yet she was still very soft to the touch. Misaki felt very plain by comparison. She had muscles, and her boobs were fairly big, but she had never considered herself pretty, or really been complimented as such except by Kanon and Kaoru.

Undressing had taken a little longer than usual due to feeling embarrassed, but there was still a bit of time for the bath to be filled, so she took out towels and such. No bath bomb, even though Tsugumi had been trying to get everyone into them. Regular water and soap was good enough.

"I'll get in first," Kanon said after turning off the water. She eased herself into the water while Misaki tried to not stare. "Okay, now you can sit here with your back to me, okay?"

"O-okay." That hadn't been what Misaki had expected, but maybe it was better that way.

She thought she could feel Kanon's eyes on her as she got into the water. It was maybe a tad warm, but not unbearably so. Hopefully Kanon also felt okay. Then she felt Kanon's hands on her shoulders, where they started to rub.

"You feel pretty stiff," Kanon said. "I thought as much."

Misaki currently felt like she could melt. "How could you... mmm... tell?"

"Um... just a feeling? I'm not sure." Kanon's soft hands had a firm grip. "I'll do my best to help you out."

Misaki let out a sigh of relief. "It feels great already..."

"Any other places you feel stiff?"

"Uh... mmm... probably..." It was a little hard to tell, but it certainly made sense her shoulders would be stiff considering what she'd done. When she took a moment to let herself feel it, most of her torso and arms felt kinda stiff. Front and back. "Mmm~." As Kanon's hands moved down her back, Misaki naturally leaned forwards, and had to put her hands down to not dip her face into the water.

"Misaki-chan?"

"Hmm?"

"I wasn't certain until I got a close look, but... you have a fair amount of scars, don't you?"

"Uh... yeah." Misaki felt a little embarrassed. It hadn't occurred to her that she would be showing Kanon that.

"Did... something bad happen?"

"Huh?" A couple of options for what Kanon might be trying to ask entered her mind. "Oh, uh, no, it's nothing like that, it's just... a combination of being careless and unlucky."

"Oh?"

"Well... I've looked after my siblings a lot, and sometimes that's involved having to protect them." She ran her fingers across her right forearm. "This is where a dog that tried to go after my brother bit me." Then reached around back to try to touch a scar-line as best as she could remember its position. "This is where a branch dropped on me as I shielded my sister." A little further down at her side. "This is the result of a bit of rough play." She sighed. "I don't remember what they're all from, but I suspect most of them are probably from me falling off of stuff while struggling to control my climbing. Or tripping over stuff, like I have one on my calf from banging into a thin edge." It hadn't been especially sharp on its own, but the force of the impact had still split her skin open. While she was a bit hardier than most people, she wasn't as resilient as Sayo.

"And here I thought I was the clumsy one."

"I wouldn't say I'm clumsy." Misaki scratched at her cheek. "Just unlucky."

"Mm..." Kanon put her arms around Misaki's waist, and pulled her close.

"K-Kanon?" Misaki's heart started beating faster as she felt Kanon's soft breasts press against her back.

"I want to make you feel better, Misaki-chan." Kanon kissed her neck. "Is that okay?"

"I..." Misaki swallowed. "I'm not sure I'll be able to do much." The current situation had relaxed her so much that most of the strength seemed to have left her body.

"Don't worry." Kanon planted another kiss as she caressed Misaki's firm tummy. "I'll take care of everything, if you'll let me."

Misaki shivered. She couldn't deny how tempting it sounded. "Then... I place myself in your care, Kanon." Maybe she could make up for it at a later date.

"Leave it to me." Kanon sounded happy, and moved her hands up to gently cup Misaki's boobs.

Misaki would probably come out of this even more tired, but at least that meant she was sure to sleep well that night.

* * *

At the end it was only Chisato and Aya left in the magical flying bubble.

"So... uh... do you wanna come to my place, or should I take you home?" Aya asked.

"I think I'd like to go home, Aya-chan." Even though the sun had gone down, Chisato seemed a bit more sedated than the previous evening. Maybe she had worn herself out.

Aya felt it a little herself, so even though she was slightly disappointed, she didn't put up any sort of argument.

They landed basically right in front of Chisato's home. Her mother knew about Aya, so there was no reason to put up any pretence, and Aya could shield them from view until they got inside anyway. Or until Chisato got inside at least.

"Do you just want to say good night here then, Chisato-chan?" Aya wouldn't object to going right home if Chisato wanted to rest.

"I..." Chisato hesitated. "Hm... actually, wait here a moment, Aya-chan." She grabbed her suitcases, and took them inside. When she came back outside it occurred to Aya that she had taken all four of their cases.

"Huh?" Aya just stared at her. "Why did you take my luggage too?" Especially if she wasn't being invited inside.

"Well, we wouldn't want anyone to steal it. You can pick it up when we get back." Chisato smiled.

"Huh? Back from where?" Aya was quite confused.

"You can keep us invisible, right?"

"What? Why?"

"Can you?"

"Uh... sure, but- wah!"

Chisato suddenly scooped Aya into her arms. "Good. Then let's go."

"G-go?"

The vampire's wings sprang forth.

"Wha- Chisato-chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-!"

With a mighty flap of those big wings, the two of them lifted into the air. Aya felt a rush deep in her stomach, similar to the time Hina had forced her to go on a roller-coaster.

"Why are you screaming, Aya-chan? You're used to flying." Chisato definitely seemed amused by the reaction.

"N-not like this!" Aya clung on tight to Chisato. When she went flying she didn't really feel anything in particular. The magic negated everything. Now all of a sudden there was momentum, gravity, and wind pulling at her.

Chisato laughed. "I guess it's a bit different!"

Aya pressed her face into Chisato's shoulder as she tried to get used to the sensation. One of the few mercies she could claim about herself was that she wasn't prone to motion sickness, but she was still feeling quite a lot of things at the moment. Every time Chisato's wings flapped she felt a jolt of movement lifting them ever upwards. It was completely different from her own way of flying. There was a thrill to it, though she couldn't quite decide if it was a terrifying one, or an exciting one.

Then things slowed down.

"Look, Aya-chan."

"Eh?"

Aya pulled her face away. The beating of Chisato's wings was a lot steadier, though she still held on tight as she looked. They were quite high up already. The daylight wasn't completely gone, but looking down at the city you couldn't really see much beyond all the lights. Some of them were moving. Technically Aya was used to views like this, but she had never taken much time to appreciate them. With the exception of the training camp, all her flying had been done for magical girl business.

"Whoa..." Yet there she was, floating above the city, in the arms of her girlfriend, just admiring the view together. _I got literally swept off my feet._

"I need to thank you, Aya-chan."

"Huh?" Aya blinked.

"It's been so long since I've been able to go out flying freely. I had almost forgotten how it feels. It's a lot harder these days to get away with it, since there are humans everywhere. Always watching. But thanks to you keeping us hidden..." Chisato sounded elated, and her eyes were sparkling. It was actually a little strange how visible they were when the rest of her face was covered in shadow. _Just like last night._ It occurred to Aya that vampires probably had excellent night vision, so maybe it had something to do with that.

"You're welcome, Chisato-chan." Her heart was beating fast as she stretched herself up, and kissed Chisato on the cheek. Chisato turned her head, and gave Aya a quick peck on the lips. It might be difficult to fly and smooch at the same time, so that was all she got. The two of them glided over the city. As she became used to it, she actually started to feel pretty snug in Chisato's arms. Her hold was firm, and strong. And the wing-beat started to feel like a comforting rhythm.

"I-it is a bit c-cold..." Chisato commented after a while.

"Y-yeah... should I shield us?" The warm blush in her cheeks wasn't quite warm enough to counteract the wind.

"N-no, I think we c-can head back..." Chisato turned around. "B-but I'd love t-to do it again sometime."

"Of c-course." They should probably dress up warmer next time. A scarf flapping about might be risky, but a snood or some other neck-warmer was probably not a bad idea. Ear-warmers too.

"Okay, hang on."

"Hang on?"

Chisato suddenly dipped, and dove back towards her home.

"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

It felt like her stomach had been left behind, just like when the roller-coaster had gone down the big drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. Finally done. Thank you all for sticking with me. At a point I wondered if this was going to be the finale in the "life goes on" kind of way, but now I'm kinda motivated to keep going a little longer. Though I will probably push things into the next year should I do more, since I've been behind the anime and game for a while now. I'll likely take a break from this again, but hopefully not as long as the last one.
> 
> Amazing to think this is the longest single fic I've written so far. This thing, of all things. I had originally envisioned this as something that would probably be somewhere between 6000 and 8000 words. Just a quick series of training scenes resulting in a few power-ups, and then quickly wrapping up. Certainly didn't think I'd keep going for 47 000 words.  
> Because I Love You, which was a complete, original story with a start, middle, and end, along with world-building and all that, was only 35 000.  
> Wild. Really wild. I suppose having the perspective of ten different characters as opposed to just one had something to do with it, but I'm still blown away.
> 
> At least now I can move on to other ideas that have been waiting for weeks.


End file.
